Lesson 5 of 5
Go-live sign-off sequence
10 min
The go-live decision is not one signature. It is a sequence of sign-offs, each resting on the one before it: technical readiness, data, functional verification, finance, and finally the business decision to open the doors. If you collapse them into one meeting, people sign things they have not checked. If you sequence them, each signer is accountable for a specific, evidenced statement.
The sequence
Acceptance criteria, agreed in advance
SAP's onboarding guidance describes go-live acceptance criteria as predefined conditions that must be met before the new solution launches, and gives examples such as an acceptable pass rate for integration and user acceptance tests, completed end-user training, no critical open issues, and validated migrated data. Write your criteria before the dress rehearsal and test them during it, so that on the night nobody is inventing thresholds under pressure.
| Criterion | Contoso threshold | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| PVT result | All critical checks passed; no open priority 1 defects | PVT test plan status and defect list |
| Data reconciliation | GL balances for company code 1710 match legacy to the cent; inventory variances within agreed tolerance | Signed reconciliation reports |
| Open defects | No priority 1; priority 2 only with documented workaround and owner | Defect report with workarounds |
| Fallback | Fallback still possible until the agreed point of no return | Cutover timeline and decision log |
| Readiness | Hypercare team staffed, users trained, support process live | Readiness checklist |
Contoso's go-live acceptance criteria. Thresholds are agreed by the steering committee before the dress rehearsal.
Running the go/no-go meeting
- Grace (PMO lead) chairs; Luis presents cutover status and timings against plan.
- Each earlier signer confirms their sign-off and states any conditions.
- Priya presents PVT results, open defects with severity and workarounds, and the residual risk.
- The group checks each acceptance criterion: met, met with conditions, or not met.
- The decision is recorded: go, go with conditions (each with an owner and due date), or no-go with the fallback path.
- The decision log is stored with the evidence, and the business release step starts.
- Are all acceptance criteria met?Yes → go; start business release · No → next question
- Do the gaps have accepted workarounds, owners and due dates?Yes → go with conditions, each recorded in the decision log · No → next question
- Is the point of no return still ahead?Yes → no-go; run the fallback path · No → escalate to the sponsor and fix forward under hypercare
After the decision: release and the final lessons
Who signs technical readiness in the cloud
On SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition under RISE, some technical cutover steps (system provisioning, backups, restores, certain transports) are performed by SAP or the hosting provider under the contract, not by Contoso's own Basis team. Technical readiness then rests partly on the provider's confirmation. Agree in advance what the provider will confirm, in what form and by when, and put those confirmations in the runbook as checkpoints. In SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition even more of the technical layer is SAP's, but data, functional, finance and business sign-offs remain the customer's responsibility.
| Sign-off | Private Edition (RISE) | Public Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Technical readiness | Shared: provider confirms provisioning, backups and some transports; Contoso's Basis team the rest | Mostly SAP |
| Data readiness | Customer | Customer |
| Functional verification | Customer | Customer |
| Finance | Customer | Customer |
| Go/no-go and business release | Customer | Customer |
Business release is a step of its own: unlock users in the agreed sequence, send the go-live message, start hypercare and switch on first-transaction monitoring. Then, within a week of go-live, hold a final cutover retrospective. Some of what you learn will help the next wave or the next company code roll-out; record it against the runbook task IDs so the runbook becomes a reusable asset, not a one-off spreadsheet.
What would you do?
At Contoso's go/no-go meeting, all criteria are met except one: a priority 2 defect in delivery output for plant 1720 Chicago has a manual workaround but no fix yet. The plant manager wants to go live. What should the group decide?
- Go-live sign-off is a sequence: technical, data, functional, finance, security, go/no-go, business release.
- Agree acceptance criteria and thresholds before the dress rehearsal, and test them during it.
- Every sign-off states what is approved, the evidence and the residual risks accepted.
- Record the decision and any conditions with owners and dates, then capture final lessons into the runbook.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. Which sign-off normally comes first in the go-live sequence?
2. When should go-live acceptance criteria be agreed?
3. What turns a signature into a real sign-off?
4. What does "go with conditions" require?