To elaborate a bit more on this point, you have to think about it like any complex system failure - it's almost never one thing, but rather a combination of many different factors. The factors around post NYE releases:
- high risk changes that weren't released pre-holidays get released. Depending on the company, this could mean a 1-week to 1-month delay between implementation and release. The greater that interval, the higher the divergence world of production and the world of the new feature
- lots of new hires (new year = new hiring budget). New hires are missing some tribal knowledge about the system and make a production-breaking release.
I tried to think of other reasons, but these two overwhelmingly stand out as the two biggest reasons. Would love to hear from others.
- high risk changes that weren't released pre-holidays get released. Depending on the company, this could mean a 1-week to 1-month delay between implementation and release. The greater that interval, the higher the divergence world of production and the world of the new feature
- lots of new hires (new year = new hiring budget). New hires are missing some tribal knowledge about the system and make a production-breaking release.
I tried to think of other reasons, but these two overwhelmingly stand out as the two biggest reasons. Would love to hear from others.