This activity determines the strategy for how each release is defined and then brought into existence in a state ready for deployment. It includes understanding the constituents of the release (from one or more Service Packages) and then considering the impact of the one or more authorized RFCs which relate to the release contents in order to create the overall plan for the release. The planning covers building, testing and verifying the release (including the possible need for pilot deployments), as well as establishing a model for how the finalized release should be deployed.