Proposal: Building release notes during sprint demo planning
Currently release notes are massive chore. @Linc has been shouldering it for a long time. I just did 2 releases of them and they're terrible to write at the end of a release.
I'm proposing that support and R&D write release notes for the items of their sprints at the during the demo planning. R&D already kind of does this in a google doc. I'm proposing we do them in a github issue at the end of the sprint, fully formatted as we were to release them.
Improving release note quality
By writing these notes at the end of a sprint, more context can be put into the notes - Descriptions, upgrade notes, and screenshots can be applied while it fresh in the developers mind.
Customer Facing Features / Enhancements
- New features should be accompanied by a screenshot or screencast of the feature in action.
- New features should have a description written as a full sentence at least.
Bug Fixes
Bug fixes should be:
- A short sentence describing the bug.
- A link to issue (well formatted). Eg. displayed as `vanilla/repo#xxx`.
Engineering Details
Things like new under the hood developer should be noted as well. These descriptions may be more technical, but should serve as a guide for what has changed under the good for reference to other developers (think cross-team).
Conclusion
Writing these notes as we complete our sprints should not add more than 5-10 minute per developer and help ensure we have high quality release notes, on-time release notes for our customers, developers, SuccessTeam™, sales team, and marketing team.