Guideline: Important Decisions in Deployment
This guideline describes important things to consider when tailoring the Deployment aspects of the process.
Relationships
Main Description

Decide How to Use Work Products

Make a decision about what work products are to be used and how they are to be used.  In addition to identifying what work products are to be used, it is also important to also tailor each work product to be used to fit the needs of the project. 

The table below specifies which Deployment work products are recommended and which are considered optional (i.e., may only be used in certain cases). For additional tailoring considerations, see the tailoring section of the work product description page.

Work Product Purpose

Tailoring (Optional, Recommended)

Bill of Materials Used to ensure that all parts of the product are available and accounted for.

Optional.

Not needed if a build is essentially the product. Often the Bill of Materials is the responsibility of a separate part of the organization, and is not part of the process followed by the software team.

Recommended when the product contains a number of non-software elements, or when software is supplied from multiple sources.

Deployment Plan Ensures that the product can be effectively transitioned to the user community.

Recommended for most projects.

However, it may be folded into a section of the Software Development Plan. A separate deployment plan may be needed when deployment tasks are complex or time-consuming.

Product (Deployment Unit)

The purpose of the process is to produce a product.

(A deployment unit is associated with a single node in the overall network of computer systems or peripherals.)

All projects produce a product.

Many projects have a single deployment unit which is the product.

User Support Material Needed to assist the user in learning, using, operating and maintaining the product. Recommended
Installation Work Products Needed to enable someone to install the product.
Recommended
Release Notes Used to identify changes and known bugs in a version of a build or deployment unit that has been made available for use. Recommended
Training Materials Training materials assist the users of the product. Recommended if users need to be trained.