Discussed with the release team and others about diverse challenges and improvement opportunities on the release process based on Kubeflow release 1.10

Motivation

• Challenge to get component’s release progress during release meetings.
  ** Blockers or challenges on the Release are identified later.
  ** Incomplete/Inaccurate or null information on some components about progress/blockers.
• The Release Manager role challenges:
  ** Only one person is responsible for the Release and decisions.
  ** Time dedication and commitment are high and for an extended period (6 months), which makes it hard to find candidates for Release.
  ** The diverse skills required for the role make it even harder for candidates to join.
• Release Documentation
  ** Working groups need help on building Technical Documentation for Releases.
  ** Working on technical documentation during the Release, before the feature freeze, can expedite the release process.
• Feature Freeze vs Building Release Candidate
  ** Teams required more time to finish the Release and later cherry-pick and work on building the Release.
• Release timeframe 
  ** The Release is now 27 weeks. There are 10 weeks between feature freeze and Release.
  ** Release dates and phases are hard to predict in the current process.

** Goals**

• Reduce time to market of Kubeflow Release
• Reduce meeting time and structure to give back time to the Release Team.
• Focus on contributions from technical documents and source code by reducing meetings and promoting async communication.
• Promote clarity on dates and phases so distributions, working groups, and the whole community can plan accordingly.
• Improve release cycle by moving technical decisions affecting the release to the Release Management team including Kubeflow platform