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Product Launch Checklist with GitScrum
A successful launch requires careful preparation across multiple teams. GitScrum helps coordinate launch activities with checklists, task tracking, and team coordination features that ensure smooth product releases.
Launch Preparation
Launch Timeline
PRODUCT LAUNCH TIMELINE:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ T-4 WEEKS: PREPARATION PHASE │
│ ☐ Feature freeze │
│ ☐ Create launch checklist │
│ ☐ Identify all teams involved │
│ ☐ Set launch criteria │
│ ☐ Begin documentation │
│ │
│ T-2 WEEKS: READINESS PHASE │
│ ☐ Feature complete │
│ ☐ Testing complete │
│ ☐ Documentation complete │
│ ☐ Marketing materials ready │
│ ☐ Support team trained │
│ │
│ T-1 WEEK: FINAL PREP │
│ ☐ Staging environment verified │
│ ☐ Go/no-go meeting scheduled │
│ ☐ Rollback plan tested │
│ ☐ Monitoring alerts configured │
│ ☐ War room scheduled │
│ │
│ T-1 DAY: PRE-LAUNCH │
│ ☐ Final go/no-go decision │
│ ☐ All systems ready │
│ ☐ Team availability confirmed │
│ ☐ Communication channels set up │
│ │
│ LAUNCH DAY: EXECUTION │
│ ☐ Execute deployment │
│ ☐ Verify functionality │
│ ☐ Monitor metrics │
│ ☐ Enable for users │
│ ☐ Announce launch │
│ │
│ T+1 WEEK: POST-LAUNCH │
│ ☐ Monitor feedback │
│ ☐ Address critical issues │
│ ☐ Launch retrospective │
│ ☐ Celebrate! 🎉 │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Team Responsibilities
LAUNCH TEAM ROLES:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ ENGINEERING: │
│ ☐ Feature development complete │
│ ☐ All tests passing │
│ ☐ Performance validated │
│ ☐ Security review complete │
│ ☐ Deployment scripts ready │
│ ☐ Rollback procedure documented │
│ ☐ On-call schedule set │
│ │
│ QA: │
│ ☐ Test plan executed │
│ ☐ Regression testing complete │
│ ☐ Edge cases verified │
│ ☐ Cross-browser/device testing │
│ ☐ Accessibility verified │
│ ☐ Sign-off given │
│ │
│ PRODUCT: │
│ ☐ Feature meets requirements │
│ ☐ User flows verified │
│ ☐ Release notes written │
│ ☐ Stakeholders informed │
│ ☐ Success metrics defined │
│ │
│ MARKETING: │
│ ☐ Announcement prepared │
│ ☐ Blog post ready │
│ ☐ Social media scheduled │
│ ☐ Email campaign ready │
│ ☐ Website updated │
│ │
│ SUPPORT: │
│ ☐ Team trained on new feature │
│ ☐ Help docs published │
│ ☐ FAQs prepared │
│ ☐ Escalation path defined │
│ ☐ Extra capacity if needed │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Technical Readiness
Pre-Launch Checklist
TECHNICAL LAUNCH CHECKLIST:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ CODE READINESS: │
│ ☐ All PRs merged to main │
│ ☐ Code freeze in effect │
│ ☐ No critical/high bugs open │
│ ☐ Technical debt acceptable │
│ │
│ TESTING: │
│ ☐ Unit tests passing (>80% coverage) │
│ ☐ Integration tests passing │
│ ☐ E2E tests passing │
│ ☐ Performance tests passed │
│ ☐ Security scan clean │
│ ☐ Accessibility audit passed │
│ │
│ INFRASTRUCTURE: │
│ ☐ Staging mirrors production │
│ ☐ Database migrations tested │
│ ☐ Feature flags configured │
│ ☐ CDN cache strategy set │
│ ☐ SSL certificates valid │
│ │
│ MONITORING: │
│ ☐ Error tracking configured │
│ ☐ Performance monitoring active │
│ ☐ Alert thresholds set │
│ ☐ Dashboard created │
│ ☐ On-call rotation set │
│ │
│ ROLLBACK: │
│ ☐ Rollback procedure documented │
│ ☐ Rollback tested on staging │
│ ☐ Database rollback possible │
│ ☐ Decision criteria defined │
│ ☐ Responsible person assigned │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Go/No-Go Decision
GO/NO-GO MEETING:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ MEETING: Launch Go/No-Go │
│ TIME: T-1 day (or morning of launch) │
│ ATTENDEES: Engineering Lead, Product, QA, Support │
│ │
│ AGENDA: │
│ │
│ 1. CHECKLIST REVIEW (15 min) │
│ Each team confirms their items complete │
│ Identify any open items │
│ │
│ 2. RISKS (10 min) │
│ Known risks and mitigations │
│ Concerns from any team │
│ │
│ 3. DECISION (5 min) │
│ GO: Proceed with launch │
│ NO-GO: Delay with specific issues to fix │
│ CONDITIONAL: Go with specific conditions │
│ │
│ DECISION CRITERIA: │
│ │
│ GO if: │
│ ✓ All critical checklist items complete │
│ ✓ No blocking bugs │
│ ✓ Rollback tested │
│ ✓ Team available for launch window │
│ │
│ NO-GO if: │
│ ✗ Critical bugs open │
│ ✗ Rollback not verified │
│ ✗ Key team members unavailable │
│ ✗ Blocking external dependencies │
│ │
│ DOCUMENT DECISION AND RATIONALE │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Launch Execution
Deployment Steps
LAUNCH DAY EXECUTION:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ PRE-DEPLOYMENT (30 min before): │
│ ☐ War room channel opened │
│ ☐ All participants online │
│ ☐ Monitoring dashboards visible │
│ ☐ Rollback procedure open │
│ │
│ DEPLOYMENT: │
│ ☐ Announce deployment starting │
│ ☐ Run deployment pipeline │
│ ☐ Monitor deployment progress │
│ ☐ Verify deployment complete │
│ │
│ VERIFICATION (Smoke tests): │
│ ☐ Health checks passing │
│ ☐ Core flows working │
│ ☐ No error spike in monitoring │
│ ☐ Performance within range │
│ │
│ ROLLOUT: │
│ ☐ Enable for percentage of users (if gradual) │
│ ☐ Monitor metrics at each stage │
│ ☐ Increase percentage gradually │
│ ☐ Full rollout │
│ │
│ ANNOUNCEMENT: │
│ ☐ Internal announcement sent │
│ ☐ External announcement triggered │
│ ☐ Documentation made live │
│ ☐ Marketing campaign started │
│ │
│ MONITORING (First 2 hours): │
│ ☐ Watch error rates │
│ ☐ Watch performance metrics │
│ ☐ Watch user feedback channels │
│ ☐ Ready to respond to issues │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
War Room
LAUNCH WAR ROOM:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ PURPOSE: Centralized communication during launch │
│ │
│ PARTICIPANTS: │
│ • Engineering lead (decision maker) │
│ • Deploying engineer │
│ • QA representative │
│ • Product manager │
│ • Support lead │
│ │
│ COMMUNICATION: │
│ • Dedicated Slack channel: #launch-[feature]-[date] │
│ • Video call for real-time discussion │
│ • Status updates every 15 minutes │
│ │
│ STATUS UPDATE FORMAT: │
│ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│
│ │ 🟢 14:30 UPDATE ││
│ │ Deployment: Complete ││
│ │ Smoke tests: Passing ││
│ │ Error rate: Normal (0.1%) ││
│ │ Users enabled: 10% ││
│ │ Issues: None ││
│ │ Next: Increase to 25% at 14:45 ││
│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘│
│ │
│ ESCALATION: │
│ Minor issue → Continue with monitoring │
│ Major issue → Pause rollout, investigate │
│ Critical issue → Initiate rollback │
│ │
│ POST-LAUNCH: Close war room, normal support takes over │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Post-Launch
Verification
POST-LAUNCH VERIFICATION:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ FIRST 24 HOURS: │
│ ☐ Error rates stable │
│ ☐ Performance metrics normal │
│ ☐ No critical user complaints │
│ ☐ Feature working as expected │
│ ☐ No rollback needed │
│ │
│ FIRST WEEK: │
│ ☐ User adoption tracking │
│ ☐ Support ticket review │
│ ☐ Bug fixes deployed │
│ ☐ Feedback collected │
│ ☐ Success metrics measured │
│ │
│ SUCCESS METRICS CHECK: │
│ │
│ Metric │ Target │ Actual │ Status │
│─────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼───────────── │
│ User adoption │ 10% │ 12% │ ✅ │
│ Error rate │ <1% │ 0.5% │ ✅ │
│ Support tickets │ <20 │ 15 │ ✅ │
│ Task completion │ 85% │ 82% │ ⚠️ Close │
│ │
│ LAUNCH RETROSPECTIVE (T+1 week): │
│ • What went well? │
│ • What could be improved? │
│ • Action items for next launch │
│ • Update launch checklist template │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Rollback Procedure
ROLLBACK PROCEDURE:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ WHEN TO ROLLBACK: │
│ • Error rate >5% and rising │
│ • Core functionality broken │
│ • Data integrity issues │
│ • Security vulnerability discovered │
│ • Cannot fix forward within SLA │
│ │
│ ROLLBACK STEPS: │
│ │
│ 1. DECISION │
│ Engineering lead makes call │
│ Document reason │
│ │
│ 2. COMMUNICATION │
│ "Initiating rollback. Reason: [reason]" │
│ Notify all war room participants │
│ │
│ 3. EXECUTE │
│ ☐ Disable feature flag (if used) │
│ ☐ Deploy previous version │
│ ☐ Rollback database if needed │
│ ☐ Clear caches │
│ │
│ 4. VERIFY │
│ ☐ Smoke tests passing │
│ ☐ Error rate normalized │
│ ☐ Functionality restored │
│ │
│ 5. COMMUNICATE │
│ ☐ Internal update │
│ ☐ External update if public │
│ ☐ Schedule post-mortem │
│ │
│ 6. ROOT CAUSE │
│ ☐ Investigate what went wrong │
│ ☐ Fix before re-launching │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘