Suggested Term: Offer

“Offer”

Consider using Offer in place of Release or Launch.

The terms release and launch are used by production teams to mark the milestone of making a web application, or a feature enhancement to a web application, available to the application’s users. These terms grate me too. They too connote a sense of finality, and the milestone is often celebrated as the end of production activity for a given web application. This is great news and a great accomplishment for the team, but it is merely the beginning of life for the web application itself. An application has no value until it is made available for use, and it is only then that its value can be truly measured. From the user’s perspective, the web application is brand new. The user, and the business for that matter, will not be as convinced of its value as the production team will have been during its happy hour celebration. From an outward-in perspective, the production team has offered an application that may or may not be accepted by the users and the business. By all means, celebrate the milestone, but bear in mind that just like child birth, the work has only just begun. No I don’t recommend using the word birth in place of offer. I don’t want to have to wake up to hop on a 5am “birth call.” Gross.

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