Overview

Every organization must determine the proper cadence for releasing features to its customers (see Figure 18.1).

Figure 18.1. Different release cadences

Though the output of a sprint is potentially shippable, many organizations choose not to release new features after every sprint. Instead, they combine the results of multiple sprints into one release.

Other organizations match the release cadence to the sprint cadence. In such cases the organization releases the potentially shippable product increment created during that sprint at the end of each sprint.

Some organizations don’t even wait for the sprint to end; they release each feature as it is completed, a practice often referred to as continuous deployment (or continuous delivery). Such organizations release a feature or a change to a feature to some or all of their customers as soon as the feature is available, which might be as often as several times a day.