Release Management, Reimagined
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Context:
Our engineering, program and product teams had finally aligned our release cadence and paid down critical technical debt, creating room to deliver visible, high-impact product enhancements. But even the most valuable updates wouldn’t drive outcomes if they never reached end users—or motivated customers to act.
Problem:
symplr’s core products were on-premise, meaning every upgrade required effort from hospital IT teams. Without a clear reason to prioritize updates, adoption lagged. Internally, teams also struggled to stay engaged with a release process that lacked visibility and urgency.
Key Actions: I adjusted our internal schedule to make releases an event and built communication infrastructure around it.
Cadence instead of trying to release as many times a year as possible (our previous goal) I limited our releases to twice a year. This helped us spend time releasing and more time coding, testing, and preparing communication. It helped customers plan for the releases they would take.
Communication my product owners and I used a new multi-channel communication plan. Each release came with a video that showed new features live in the system and could be watched in 15 minutes. Customers were invited to write or comment if they had questions unique to their configuration.
Result: Engagement and action. Not only did customers respond in surveys that they loved the videos that could update them as they drank their morning coffee, they were more comfortable moving forward with releases. Internal stakeholders reported feeling more prepared when releases were available and reported being able to advocate more effectively to customers.
Relevant Skills
Product Roadmap & Release Strategy
Customer Engagement & Communication
Cross-functional Collaboration & Leadership
Change & Project Management
I don’t just build features—I build understanding, stories and business sense into processes that matter. If that is a skill set that matters to your team - lets connect.