Together, increased reliance on software, greater software complexity, and diversification of the software supply chain require better release management. For application development professionals, release management is the definition, support, and enforcement of processes for transferring software to production. To meet the needs of application development, IT operations, and the business, follow three release management best practices: 1) Build a strong release team; 2) get serious about production readiness standards; and 3) continuously tune release frequency and type. These best practices may sound intuitive, but the challenge for most application development professionals is not so much in understanding them as in putting them in place.