Define a threshold for patch release pressure

Currently, release managers prepare patch releases based on:

• The number of Pick into x.x merge requests
• A request made by a GitLab stakeholder (internal or external)

This process will change once the maintenance policy extension is in place because patch releases will be primarily driven by the patch release pressure. The patch release pressure is defined as the number of unreleased merge requests merged into the active stable branches that haven't been released. This information is available in the release managers' dashboard and guidance is in our runbooks to assist release managers to use the patch release pressure information to decide when a patch release should be prepared.

Rather than relying on heuristic metrics, a threshold should be defined to guide release managers when a patch release should be prepared. This threshold should likely

• Number of S1/S2 MR waiting to be patched
• Number of MR waiting to be patched.