Enforce "No Documentation, No Deployment" for Every Release

This chapter explains how to enforce the Minimum Application Documentation Policy at the point where it matters most: the deployment of a Release to Production.

Why the Production Deployment Gate Is the Right Control Point

The decision to deploy a Release to Production is the moment at which the enterprise takes on the risk of running new or changed software in its business. It is also the moment at which everyone involved is paying attention. Making documentation conformance a condition of that decision ties documentation to something teams cannot ignore, and it ensures that documentation is updated with every Release rather than in occasional clean-up efforts.

Establish the Gate

Build documentation conformance into the Release process as a formal condition of Production Deployment:

• Every Release, every methodology. The gate applies to every Release of every Application, whether delivered through Agile sprints, Waterfall Releases, or a hybrid approach, and whatever the Application’s Sourcing Type or Hosting Model.

• New and updated documentation. The gate requires both documentation for anything new and updates to documentation for anything changed.

• Verified by stakeholders. Each critical stakeholder confirms that its section is complete and current, and the Application Manager attests to the whole.

• Enforced by governance bodies. The Change Review Board, or an equivalent Release governance body, supported by Enterprise Architecture, checks the documentation evidence before approving Production Deployment.

• No silent waivers. A Release that does not conform does not proceed unless an exception is approved through the defined exception process.

Document and Share Gate Decisions

Record, for every Release, the documentation conformance evidence considered at the gate, the stakeholder confirmations, and the gate decision, and retain these records as part of the Application’s Release and Change History.

Best Practice: Enforce “No Documentation, No Deployment” at Every Production Release

It is a best practice to both establish and document the solution for enforcing the documentation policy: make complete and vetted documentation a formal condition of every Production Deployment, verify it through stakeholder confirmation and Release governance, and record the evidence of every gate decision.

Benefits: Tying documentation to Production Deployment makes it part of delivering a Release rather than an afterthought, so documentation keeps pace with the Application as it changes. Recorded gate decisions also give the enterprise evidence, Release by Release, that its policy is actually being applied.

Common Antipatterns

Connections to Related IF4IT Practices and Inventories

The Release Management Best Practices describes Release governance and the decisions it makes. The Technology Portfolio Management (TPM) Best Practices describes the parallel practice of establishing inventory compliance as a prerequisite for Production Deployment. The IF4IT framework “Agile, Waterfall, or Hybrid: An IF4IT Framework for Choosing Delivery Methodology” explains why lifecycle obligations apply regardless of delivery method.