Problem: Slow Releases Kill Momentum

There’s a lot of teams that thinks about themselves as “agile”, they do have JIRA, they do the standups, but if we look closely at their release cycle it says otherwise.

They can plan sprints, push to main and then they… wait. They wait for the QA - a week. Then for the UAT testing phase - another week. Then for the Release Window.

By the time the feature hits production, everyone forgot why it was built.

Slow releases kill developer momentum and delay the only thing that matters - feedback from real users.

What RERO Really Means

RERO - Realease Early, Release Often - isn’t about deploying half-baked code. It’s abt shortening the feedback loop between code and reality.

• Release Early → push features to production as soon as they’re functional, not perfect

• Realease Often → make deployment a non-event; something you do daily, not quarterly (or monthly)

The goal isn’t speed for the sake of speed.

The goal is learning faster than your competition.

Why It Works

Every release is a feedback opportunity. EVery deployment tests your delivery pipeline, your observability, and your assumptions.

The more often you release:

• the smaller your changes are → they’re easier to debug (this is uber important part!)

• the faster you catch the regression (if any) → you lower the risk

• the quicker you learn what users actually want → profit (better ROI)

RERO shifts focus from “perfect features” to conrtinuos improvement.

How to Apply RERO in Practice

1. Define What “Release Ready” Means:

   • Agree as a team what “good enough for release” means

   • Use your Definition of Done as the gate - not “it feels ready” (lol):

     • code reviewed

     • tests passing (CI)

     • feature flag enabled

     • rollback plan ready

2. Use Feature Flags:

   • Don’t wait until a feature is “fully complete”

   • Wrap it in a flag and ship it dark:

     •   if feature.IsEnabled("new_flow") {
             newFlow();
         } else {
             oldFlow();
         }
       

3. Automate Everything:

   • if your deployment requires a 10-step manual guid, you’ll never release often

   • Automate GH Actions, GL CI or wahtever you’re using - the key is zero (or minimal) friction deploys

4. Release Small, Release Confident:

   • Trunk based development helps

   • No more long-lived branches that rot for weeks - merge daily

   • Small commits = fast reviews = fewer conflicts = faster learning

5. Monitor and Rollback

   • RERO without monitoring is chaos

   • Make sure you can:

     • detect failures quickly (metrics, logs, alerts)

     • rollback instantly (blue/green or versioned deploys)

Common Pitfalls and How To Avoid Them

1. “We’ll release when QA approves” → Integrate QA into the pipeline. Use automated regression tests.

2. “Our users can’t handle frequent updates” → Use progressive rollouts: 5%, 25%, 100% (canary releases)

3. “We’re afraid of breaking production” → Build trust in rollback and observability.

4. “We don’t have time for this” → You don’t have time not to. Every delay costs learning.

It’s not just about speed - it’s about smoother flow. Velocity isn’t measured by lines of code - it’s measured by how fast you learn and adapt.

Final Thoughts

“Release Early, Release Often” is more than a slogan - it’s a mindset shift. It replaces fear with feedback and perfectionism with progress.

The faster you ship, the faster you learn. The faster you learn, the better you build.

Cheers!

Sources

• RERO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Release_early,_release_often

• Trunk Based Development: https://trunkbaseddevelopment.com/

• B/G deployment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2%80%93green_deployment

• Canary Release: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/CanaryRelease.html