Plan releases to decide what to deliver when

Evan McGivern

Updated December 11, 2024 17:11

Productboard Customer Education Team

Releases are freeform buckets that you can use to group features together on certain boards. They help you communicate your priorities to stakeholders across your organization while indicating approximately when certain functionalities may be available.

Defining your releases

You can name a release anything you want, but usually it's best to stick to the following conventions:

Sequential release numbers (R17, R18, R19...)
Sprint numbers (Sprint 1, Sprint 2, Sprint 3...)
Codenames (Betelgeuse, Nova, Fusion...)
Relative timeframes (Now, Next, Later)
Time periods (January, Q1, 2025...)
- (Actually, time periods are often better handled by timeframes!)

Agile organizations often use a hybrid of the above, defining releases more granularly in the short-term and then getting broader when extending further into the future (e.g. February, March, Q2, 2H, Later).

If you're using your releases to indicate when features might be available, the key is to avoid committing to specific dates (or narrow timeframes) whenever possible—particularly with regard to anything beyond the short-term. Having the flexibility to adjust plans as you learn more about the problems you're solving for and the objectives you're pursuing is a requisite for success with Agile.

What can go into releases?

You can link three different item types to releases:

Initiatives (New experience only): You can link entire initiatives to releases in cases where releases represent high-level deliverables.
Features: You can link individual deliverables or functionality to releases.
Subfeatures: If you are using releases for relatively small time buckets (like sprints), you can link individual subfeatures to releases.

Release statuses

Each release has its own status, which is indicated by a little flag next to its name. You can click on the flag any time to change the status of that release.

There are three statuses to choose from (Upcoming, In progress, and Completed). Currently there is no way to add or remove release statuses, or to rename the default ones.

Adding items to releases

Using board columns

You can add releases as columns to any features board or grid using Add columns > Releases and toggling the slider.

Simply click the circle in a release column to assign that row's item to that column's release.

By dragging and dropping

Most boards will let you drag and drop items around. Dragging an appropriate item from one release to another will reassign that item to that release.

From the item's detail sidebar

Click on an item to open its sidebar, then scroll down to the Releases section and find your releases. Click Add release to choose the releases you'd like to assign the item to.

From the release's detail sidebar

You can also link items to releases from within the release's sidebar, which you can access by clicking directly on a release. Scroll down to the Initiatives, Features, or Subfeatures section and find the items you want. Click the + button to assign that item to that release.

Visualizing releases on grids, timelines, and columns boards

There are three ways to visualize releases on New boards. Not all visualization methods are available on all board types. Here is a description of each method along with the boards it can be used with.

Note: As you're experimenting to find the right visualization method for your use case, don't forget that you can use the Board controls menu to easily switch any New board's layout to any other New board layout without creating a new board.

Method 1: Main item (grids, timelines, columns boards)

Open the Board controls menu and make sure Release is the first item type in the list under Items. (The item type at the top of the list is considered the board's main item type.)

Method 2: Grouping (timelines and columns boards)

If your main item type is Initiative or Feature, you can go into Board controls and, under Groups, add a Release grouping. Groups are essentially swimlanes, and depending on your selection you may be able to add a nested group.

Method 3: Columns (columns boards only)

If you want to easily drag and drop move items between releases, go to Board controls and, under Columns, add a Release or release group.

Working with release groups

Release groups are folders for your releases. You can create a new release group from the Data section > Releases > Create release group (the blue button in the top right corner).

Use cases for release groups

If you have multiple teams working out of the same Productboard workspace, each using a different release system, you can manage each as a separate release group.
You can also use release groups for different types of releases (sprints, versions, patches...).
You could also create multiple release groups to manage when features are getting worked on, or when they are tentatively planned to be released, separately from the broader releases that are shared with your organization on your roadmaps.

Displaying multiple release groups

On grids or features boards, you can display multiple releases from multiple release groups at once by adding releases as columns.