2017 product management changes

We're making a few incremental changes to improve communication and reduce support as we start the new year.

Sprint structure

  1. R&D sprints will be numbered by year & quarter (ex: 2017-Q2-1).
  2. Exactly 6 sprints per quarter.
  3. Formal QA steps for VIPs will be sprinted for the services team prior to VIP deploys.

Deploy timetable

  • Quarterly VIP releases named by season (e.g. release/2017-spring).
  • Bi-weekly deploys with release notes (Tues after R&D sprint end) for CSM-managed (4xx) & sales demo (212) clusters.
  • Ad-hoc deploys will continue for staging and support-managed (3xx) clusters.