Lesson 3 of 6
Re-baselining scope, plan and quality gates
12 min
Once the program knows where it stands, it needs a new baseline it can actually meet. Re-baselining resets scope, plan and quality gates together, based on the assessment's evidence and on measured delivery rates, and gets a formal sponsor decision. Done well, it is the moment the program stops promising and starts delivering again.
The three levers, and the one you do not pull
A troubled program has three levers: date, scope and resources. Quality is not a fourth lever. Lowering exit criteria to meet a date does not recover a program; it moves the failure into production, where it is more expensive and more visible.
| Lever | What it means | Works when | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Move go-live | The business calendar allows a new window clear of close and peak periods | Costs run-rate; may collide with year-end or contract dates |
| Scope | Defer non-essential processes, reports or sites to a later release | Scope can be split without breaking integrated processes | Deferred items need temporary workarounds and their own release |
| Resources | Add or change people | Specific skills are missing, added early | Adding people late slows a team before it speeds it up |
| Quality | Lower exit criteria | Never as a recovery lever | Moves defects to production and destroys sign-off credibility |
Re-scope to a minimum viable go-live
Classify every scoped item as must have for day one (legal, financial, operational necessity), needed soon after (can follow in a release within weeks), or can wait. For each deferred item, define the temporary workaround and who runs it. In the what-if, Contoso kept order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, production, intercompany between company codes 1710 and 1810, and the close in scope; deferred a new plant maintenance analytics dashboard and a supplier self-service portal to a release three months after go-live; and kept the legacy rebate calculation in a spreadsheet for one quarter.
Re-plan from measured rates
A new plan built on the same optimism as the old one fails the same way. Re-plan from what the program has actually achieved: defects closed per week, test cases executed per tester-day, mock durations, key-user hours actually given. Add explicit contingency, sized from the spread in those rates, and hold it visibly at program level. In the what-if, Priya's measured SIT pace was 60% of plan; the new plan uses that pace, not the original one, plus a recovery effect only where a specific action (more fix capacity, a stable test environment) justifies it.
- Assessment findingsWhere the program really stands
- Scope decisionMust, soon, later; workarounds for deferrals
- Measured ratesActual pace of fixing, testing, loading
- New plan with contingencyBottom-up, with visible reserve
- Reset gatesMeasurable criteria at each gate
- Sponsor decisionFormal approval; old baseline closed
Reset the quality gates
Troubled programs often have gates that became formalities. Reset each remaining gate with measurable criteria, evidence sources and named deciders, and record them in the project, for example as quality gate checklists in SAP Cloud ALM. Typical recovery gates include SIT exit, UAT exit, each mock cutover, go/no-go and hypercare exit.
| Gate | Example criterion | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| SIT exit | All in-scope end-to-end cases executed; no open critical or high defects without approved workaround | Test Execution Analysis; defect list by priority |
| UAT exit | Each process owner signs acceptance of their processes | Signed acceptance per process |
| Mock 2 | Fits the window with at least four hours of float; reconciliation differences explained | Mock report; reconciliation sign-off |
| Go/no-go | All criteria met or covered by owned, dated conditions | Evidence pack; decision log |
Examples of reset gate criteria with their evidence.
What would you do?
The sponsor asks for the go-live date to stay fixed and for SIT exit criteria to allow up to ten open high-priority defects instead of zero. What should Grace recommend?
- Re-baseline scope, plan and gates together, and get a formal sponsor decision.
- Date, scope and resources are levers; lowering quality criteria is not a recovery.
- Re-scope to must-have for day one with workarounds for deferrals; re-plan from measured rates.
- Reset gates with measurable criteria, evidence sources and named deciders.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. Which lever should not be used to recover a troubled program?
2. What should a recovery plan be built from?
3. An item is necessary for go-live but not ready. Where should effort go?
4. What must accompany every deferred scope item?