### 5.3.1 Frequency and Duration Changes in a solution’s release strategy have different reasons or justifications. Still, they always arrive in the context of the following perspectives: - **Top-down** – A change in the organisation’s strategy as a response to a change in its context. - **Bottom-up** – Based on the feedback of the Product Owner (PrOw) or an Agile Team Member (ATeM) as the solution continues to evolve. Regardless of perspective, there are three aspects to consider in Release Planning to guarantee the desired value. - **Manage the Work Items List (WIL)** –Product Owner (PrOw) and other business stakeholders decide what new elements may need to be added, updated or removed from the Work Items List (WIL). - **Work Items List (WILL) refinement** – The Product Owner (PrOw) and the rest of the Agile Project Core Team (A-PCT) review the information coming from the Manage the WIL aspect and provide, when needed, new estimates. They also detail and validate the next Work Items the team will work on, review estimates, etc. Additional stakeholders like the Business Manager (BM) and the Users Representatives from the Business Implementation Group (BIG) may also join as needed. - **Work Items List (WIL) Prioritisation** - Product Owner (PrOw) and Stakeholders review the Work Items List (WIL) and redefine the priorities. PM2-Agile recommends this sequence of steps to be performed at least once per iteration (considering a 2- week iteration). However, the longer an iteration is or the more volatile the solution context is, the more frequent the release planning should be. One may ask if these steps should be performed as a single ceremony or as separated ones. Experience shows that organising these steps as individual ceremonies yields better results than executing a single one. PM2-Agile does not have a specific recommendation for the duration because for each step, different tools and techniques can be used. For instance, user story workshops in the first step are quite common and can last several hours compared to an approach where only one person identifies and presents the stories to the rest of the stakeholders. Design blocks yield great results for both the first and second steps. The goal is to find a balance between the time invested and each step’s objective. [[5.3.2 Structure of the Release Planning]]