Cutover Planning and Management

Keep this: job aid

Cutover manager's checklist

• Strategy chosen (big bang, phased) with reasons; date clear of quarter-end, peaks and holidays.
• Downtime window agreed with the business; freezes dated with owners and exception rules.
• Every runbook task has owner, backup, time, predecessors, instructions, verification and evidence.
• Durations come from rehearsal actuals; critical path and float recalculated after each mock.
• Two mocks and a dress rehearsal, with real people, full volumes and the real clock.
• Fallback executed and timed in a rehearsal; latest fallback start calculated.
• Go/no-go points, criteria and deciders agreed before the dress rehearsal.
• Command center roster with shifts and backups; status board, issue log and decision log ready.
• Communications pre-written for executives, users, partners and the hypercare desk.
• Business contingency owned by process owners: staged shipments, safety stock, manual workarounds.