What is Release Planning?
Release planning maps backlog to time at the medium range: which features land in which release, driven by either a fixed date (scope flexes) or fixed scope (date forecast from velocity/throughput). It bridges the roadmap's themes and the sprint's tasks.
Honest release plans are probabilistic — "the top 40 items by June with 85% confidence" — and re-forecast every sprint as velocity data arrives. A release plan that never changes isn't stable; it's ignored.
Worked example
A team planning a March trade-show release works backward: 6 sprints available, velocity 22–28 points, so 130–170 points of capacity. The must-have list totals 120 — it fits with margin; the next tier is ranked and explicitly conditional. When January velocity dips, the plan's built-in flexibility sheds two conditional items instead of the date, and the booth demo ships on the day the booth was booked.