The deployment plan should contain the unique instructions for deploying a particular version of a product. By "unique instructions" we mean those things that are not part of a deployment engineer's normal procedures. Rather, they often are specific procedures and timing constraints that a deployment engineer should be aware of as they are rolling out a particular release.

While a draft version of the deployment plan is typically developed by a development team, the deployment engineer is responsible for its contents and existence. A deployment plan normally consists of the following sections:

• The scope of the release and a general overview of the capabilities to be deployed
• The timing and dependencies for deploying components to various nodes
• The risks or issues associated with the release based on a risk assessment
• The customer organization, stakeholders, and end user community that will be impacted by the release
• The person or persons who have the authority to approve the release as "ready for production"
• The development team members responsible for delivering the release package to the Deployment Manager, along with contact information
• The approach for transitioning the release package to the Deployment Engineer, including appropriate communications protocols and escalation procedures
• The success criteria for this deployment; in other words, how will the Deployment Engineer know that the release is successful so it can report success