LOVED - Release Scales
Published on Aug 12, 2022 by Craig Sturgis
There's lots to learn from in Martina Lauchengco's book "LOVED: How to Rethink Marketing for Tech Products."
My favorite immediately useful takeaway was making sure to use a "Release Scale."
Any time any change is being released, teams should have a consistent way to determine and label how impactful it is, and how much preparation and coordination should be done ahead of time.
For example, a minor fix or small change can be a "Level 1" release with just a bullet in the release notes and no need for coordination.
A "Level 2" release might need website / support documentation and 1-2 weeks of lead time for other teams to prep.
Her example scale goes up to "Level 5" where the go to market facing teams throughout the company need 3-5 months of lead time to get all the resources and marketing campaigns and sales support ready for a major launch, of which there should be at least 1 per year, but no more than 2.
From the product management / tech team side of things this is something that might be really useful for discussions of what needs to be deployed behind a feature flag and help guide coordination so others aren't feeling blindsided or like they're always in catch up mode.
Anyway, highly recommend the book if you're working on digital products and are not super clear on product marketing, which in my experience is everyone.
Having a commute again to do daycare drop off is not the greatest, but at least it gives me time to chew through audiobooks again!