Software Release Note Form: Fill & Download for Free

This is definitely an interesting topic, and one that I’m pretty passionate about. Over the past decade, while serving in a variety of different Product Management and Product Marketing roles, I’ve had hundreds of conversations about release notes, how to best handle them, when they’re needed/required, and so on.Something I’ve always found interesting is that it’s not only technical teams I’ve had these conversations with either. It’s very often Customer Success, Account Management, or even Project and Program Managers. It also doesn’t seem to be a question that correlates with a specific size of company or even industry. The question of when to write release notes, and how detailed to make them, is something every software team grapples with.With that said, having seen a number of different release notes strategies play out at different companies, here’s my two cents:The short answer is: Yes! You definitely should. And here’s why…Most importantly, as a general rule I think leaning towards transparency is always the smarter and more strategic option when it comes to customer communications. Simply put, transparency builds trust. It makes your users feel valued, engaged, and invested in your team’s work and the future of your business. Writing great release notes is a guaranteed way to accomplish all of these things in one fell swoop. The more often you write them, the more transparent you appear to your customers. As an added benefit, it’s also an easy way to showcase your product’s momentum to the world. And if you’re in the B2B SaaS space, showcasing momentum is especially important, as that space gets more competitive by the day.For some additional perspective on the importance of transparency in business, here is another take from Slack I would highly recommend: Transparency in business: the next wave in company evolutionNow, while advocating for transparency and the need for regular and detailed release notes, I’m also very empathetic to the fact that writing great release notes takes time, and time is the one thing no one has enough of. So in an effort to keep the process of writing release notes as simple and straightforward as possible, here are a few rules and guidelines I often share with teams who are working to improve their release notes strategy.1. Focus on the value to the customer. Release notes should be about the customer, not about your product or company. Clearly explain how they benefit from the update you shipped. Tip: use “you” instead of “we”.2. Keep them punchy. Release notes aren’t the time or place for long-form marketing language. Keep your release notes concise and to the point so they’re easier to consume. Explain the change efficiently and clearly, and link to places with additional information if the change is large or complex enough to warrant it.3. Use plain language. Avoid technical jargon whenever possible. Be specific and make them accessible to a broad audience. Be conscious of geographical locations and languages. Some vocabulary may not resonate well with certain customers.4. Include images, videos, gifs, and links to additional information. Release notes should be a brief summary of the change. When necessary, link to additional details. If an image or video will help explain a change, include them in the release notes or link to an additional piece of content such as an article in your help center.5. Use release note templates. A template can ensure your release notes are consistent and include all of the necessary bits of information. This doesn’t have to be heavy weight. It can be a simple checklist such as:What has changed?Why has it changed?How is the user impacted?What does the user need to do now?6. Include specific dates. Communicating about a change is great, but letting your users know when the thing changed gives them necessary context and leaves less room for questions like: “which day did this bug fix actually roll out?”. Of course, it’s not always possible to include dates on every single item, but at a bare minimum ensure you always include the date each set of release notes was published.One tool I came across a while back (and seems to be everywhere these days) is LaunchNotes. It’s a release notes tool that not only allows you to accomplish all the things I’ve mentioned above, but also allows PMMs to more easily launch new products and features, gives PMs the ability to tease upcoming changes and enroll early adopters into beta programs, and a bunch of other cool things. I see it popping up more and more and know hundreds of teams are using it as a release notes tool, as it’s perfectly suited for that. In any case, might be worth checking out.I hope the above helps you make a decision. Good luck!Full disclosure: I’m actively advising LaunchNotes, as it’s by far the best solution I’ve seen that’s out there solving this problem and I wanted to be involved :)

Lots of good answers here, but there are some other aspects that were not covered well enough, in my opinion. Good software comes from a good development process, which properly manages changes.I'm not exactly sure what you mean by “insert and delete”, but for the sake of argument I'm assuming that you are referring to making a trivial change to a codebase, and not writing database queries.In my early days of software, we had a client who started asking for tiny, simple changes: rewording labels on a window, rearranging buttons on a form, etc. After a couple of changes, the owner started billing him a couple hundred dollars per change. The guy was incensed, asking how long it really took to edit a couple of characters in our code. I was inclined to agree with him, until the owner pointed out that to make the change, the development team would need to:Locate the section of code that needed to be changedMake the changeRebuild the appRun dev tests to ensure that the fix worked in all scenariosCheck the change in to source controlPromote the changed code to testingBuild and stage the code for QARegression test the QA codePromote the tested code as a new release versionWrite release notesBuild and test the new installer packageCoach the client on how to upgrade their systemsReading through this, I see that I've skipped steps involving issue tracking, team communication, code review, and system documentation, but I think you get the drift. Each of these steps are simple in a well-oiled dev and test process, but taken all together it adds up to a significant effort.Now, for the sake of expediency, could we have skipped half of these steps? Probably, but experience has shown that cutting corners when you just KNOW that the fix HAS to work will lead to nothing but trouble down the road. The process is there to protect you and the customer, so bypassing it is like tightrope walking without a net. Why take the chance just to save a hundred bucks?

Content writing is a felt need in areas where some original content is required. It can be either in the form of creative thinking or describing some happening, sharing some experience or concern, analysing and displaying the interpretation, explaining events and consequences and the list may be endless.Technical writing is used in specific areas like when a user manual or user guide is to be written for a software product or any other product. Technical writing is also used when there is a need to write help files, training manuals or how-to-guides. The other specific area where technical writing comes handy is when process documents and release notes are to be written.