Sign-Off Essentials: Entry Criteria, Exit Criteria and Quality Gates

Keep this: job aid

Sign-off card

• Sign-off = accountable decision on evidence. State scope, evidence, exceptions, decision.
• Entry: environment and client, build imported, data loaded, test cases approved, testers with roles, triage set, exit criteria agreed.
• Exit: coverage, pass rate, no open critical, high only with workaround, retests and final regression done, risks accepted, report published.
• Agree exit criteria before execution, with the signers. Change only openly.
• SAP Activate: Discover, Prepare, Explore, Realize, Deploy, Run; a quality gate after each phase.
• Realize-to-Deploy gate needs signed integration and UAT, data migration validation, non-functional results, risks, cutover readiness.
• Conditions: specific, owned, dated, verifiable, with a fallback. Track to closure.
• Risk record: risk, cause, impact, mitigation, condition, owner, date, accepted by.
• Who signs: process owners (functional), technical leads (technical), sponsor (business acceptance and go-live); test lead attests evidence.
• Nobody accepts their own work; delegation in writing only.