Go-live planning is not like wedding planning, it is like planning a marriage. It is not just planning for a big day; it involves planning the events prior to the go-live phase and afterwards too. A huge amount of effort has been put into the project—teams have been working extremely hard designing, developing, and testing, and a lot of communication and dollars have been put into planning the release. A well-documented go-live plan can help ensure a smooth execution of the release and make the most of all that hard work and, of course, the dollars invested in the project.
As part of the release, you may be performing hundreds of tasks, so it is important to track their progress, dependencies, and corrective actions. Go-live planning involves the following:
Multiple reviews with the IT and business teams can ensure that you have identified every task that needs to be performed as part of the cutover, and that everyone involved understands the big picture of all the tasks involved in the release and not just their piece. Using such a plan for UAT, end-to-end testing, and pilot releases can help you identify any gaps in the plan as you practice the overall release execution process. This includes the communication required across groups such as turning off certain integrations of the legacy system, the setup of a new system, data migration, data validation, release testing, or a roll back process. All the steps need to be documented in the go-live plan.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
ERP implementation is like a heart surgery for the organization. A readiness check needs to be done carefully, prior to going live.
There is always a tremendous amount of pressure to make the go-live date, oftentimes somebody's job(s) is on the line, and so on. However, the readiness of the organization for the new system needs to be evaluated carefully prior to flipping the on switch. The following table enlists a few important considerations and criteria to evaluate if you are ready for going live:
Any exceptions need to be documented and presented to the business team and the management for making decisions. Discounting any of these areas could result in an unquiet environment post go-live and negatively impact the business.