Include Release Post Items in the Definition of Done
Question to answer
Should it be required to create a release post item as part of the Definition of Done (DoD)?
Background
- Release Post Items use this template: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/blob/master/.gitlab/merge_request_templates/Release-Post-Item.md
- When they are merged to master they appear on the upcoming page: https://about.gitlab.com/releases/gitlab-com/
- And are then moved into the Monthly Release Post to appear in the release post blog.
- Here is the current DoD: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/contributing/merge_request_workflow.html#definition-of-done
Pros
- If there is a user-impacting change it would be good to tell people about it
- Writing, reviewing, and merging release post items continually distributes the work across the month instead of having it pile up a few days before the release post.
- Writing release post items sooner allows more time for the review cycle
Cons
- Writing release post items sooner invites rework as the feature or process may change (e.g. PMs report needing to redo release post item MRs that don't make a release and carry over to the next.)
- More process can encumber velocity (if code is ready to go live and add customer value should we block on merging it because there's no marketing yet?)
- We already have good guidelines for changelog entries in the DoD, do we need announcements as well?
Not sure if pro or con
- Adding to the DoD in the Docs would require this for all contributions, not just those from the GitLab Team. Do we want to require the community to do this in addition to a changelog?
Alternatives
- We already suggest writing release post items at Kick-off !46 (diffs), we could make this a requirement rather than a suggestion
- Make sure we can a definition of "what constitutes a release post item" before we require it.
Edited by Farnoosh Seifoddini