More simulations, prior to going live, will make the final execution easy. It also helps prepare the recipe for the no panic pill. No matter how much preparation goes into planning a release, there may still be a few last-minute new discoveries. It is important how you react to them and maintain a no-panic environment. Consider following while executing a release:

• Track the tasks as per the Go Live plan and their dependencies.
• Send communications a multiple number of times (on track/ahead or behind, and the like) during the release window (communicate the frequency to all the stakeholders).
• Schedule conference calls with the leadership team to provide updates (you need to be giving them proactive updates rather than having them at your back, chasing for updates) as well as the Go/No-Go decisions at specific intervals. 
• Engage the IT SMEs and business SMEs for data validation. You need to record these tests (reports from the previous system and the new system), and save the test results. You will need them for your audit. 
• Run through the release validation tests to verify that a functionality is working as expected. If you can hold a good sample of transactions from the previous working day, try to process them in the system and take them end-to-end. You can hold half a day worth of orders from a day prior to Go Live, enter them manually in the new system, and try to take them all the way through invoicing. Verify the reverse logistics as well. Verify the access to reports and integrations across multiple systems. 
• Stay alert for upcoming surprises, and handle them sooner.

The following figure shows an example of the Go Live plan execution and the communication plan:

As shown in the figure, you can use this kind of format for tracking the execution of the Go Live plan as well as for communicating the progress of the execution with the stakeholders.