Interactive tool
Cutover & Go-Live Readiness Checklist
Go-live is a decision, not a date. The critical items are a hard gate — miss one and it's No-go. But a passed gate isn't GO: open items still need an owner and accepted risk, and an authorized owner has to actually decide. So the verdict moves through No-go → Hold → Ready → GO, never jumping straight to GO. It's the tool behind the cutover & go-live guide and hypercare.
GO decision unlocks once the critical gate passes
Readiness (before the window)
0/8Data & migration (in the window)
0/6Validation (smoke tests)
0/6Go / No-go decision
0/4# Cutover / go-live readiness Verdict: NO-GO — 8 critical checks outstanding Progress: 0% complete ## Readiness (before the window) - [ ] Cutover plan written, timed and signed off - [ ] Go/No-go criteria agreed in advance (critical) - [ ] Runbook with named owner per step - [ ] Rollback plan documented and viable (critical) - [ ] Config / transport freeze in place - [ ] Migration rehearsed on a full dress run - [ ] Business sign-off on UAT results (critical) - [ ] Comms plan + escalation contacts circulated ## Data & migration (in the window) - [ ] Final source extract taken and locked - [ ] Migration executed to target - [ ] Record counts reconciled source vs target (critical) - [ ] Opening balances tie out to the ledger (critical) - [ ] Open / in-flight items migrated - [ ] Number ranges & sequences set correctly ## Validation (smoke tests) - [ ] Key master data spot-checked - [ ] Payment run produces the correct file to the bank (critical) - [ ] Bank statement imports and posts - [ ] Period-end / close job runs clean - [ ] Authorizations tested for each role - [ ] Interfaces / integrations green end-to-end (critical) ## Go / No-go decision - [ ] Business owner sign-off on go-live (critical) - [ ] Rollback still viable within the window - [ ] Hypercare team on standby - [ ] Decision recorded with owner + timestamp ## Go decision - [ ] Open non-critical items have a named owner + accepted risk - [ ] Authorized business owner has given GO
The checklist is a sound default for a finance-system cutover — adapt it to your rollout; the critical items are the ones I'd never waive. It keeps no state on a server: nothing you tick or type leaves your browser.
Worked example
A finance-system cutover the day before the window, with the 24-item checklist worked honestly. Illustrative ticks to show how the verdict is derived — not a benchmark, and not a substitute for your own cutover plan.
What the team ticked
- Critical items complete8 of 8
- Non-critical items complete13 of 16
- Period-end / close job cleannot run
- Hypercare team on standbynot confirmed
- Decision recorded + timestampnot yet
- Open items owned + acceptedunticked
- Business owner has given GOunticked
What the tool returns
- Critical checks outstanding0
- Critical gatepassed
- Open non-critical items3
- Progress21/24 (88%)
- VerdictHOLD
- Cleared to go liveno
Read it as: 88% complete, every critical check green, and it still isn't GO. Ticking open items have a named owner + accepted risk moves it to READY; only the authorized business owner's decision makes it GO. Untick one critical item — say opening balances tie out to the ledger — and it drops straight back to NO-GO at 83%. Progress is not permission.
How this works
Methodology
The critical items form a hard gate — all must be green. A passed gate is not GO: the verdict moves No-go → Hold → Ready → GO, and GO also needs open items owned with accepted risk, plus an explicit business-owner decision.
Assumptions
- The critical items are genuinely your no-waiver conditions — adapt them if they are not.
- 'Done' means verified, not intended — a ticked box reflects real evidence.
- An authorized owner actually makes the GO call; the tool records it, it does not make it.
Limitations
- It is a readiness framework, not a runbook — it does not sequence the cutover steps or timings.
- The default list is a sound starting point, not a substitute for your project's specific plan.
- It cannot verify the checks for you; an honestly-worked checklist is the whole point.
Frequently asked questions
How does the checklist decide No-go, Hold, Ready or GO?
Eight of the 24 items are marked critical, and they are a hard gate: while any one is unticked the verdict is No-go, however high the completion percentage climbs. Once the gate is clear the verdict becomes Hold until you confirm that the remaining open items have a named owner and accepted risk, then Ready, and only GO once an authorized business owner has explicitly given it. It never jumps straight to GO, because a passed gate is not a decision.
Can I adapt the list to my own cutover?
The 24 items and the eight critical ones are fixed in this build — the tool records your ticks, it doesn't let you rewrite the list. Treat it as a sound default rather than your project's plan: if an item doesn't apply, note that in the Notes field, and if you have no-waiver conditions of your own that aren't here, keep them in your runbook and don't read a GO from this page as covering them.
What does the share link send, and does anything else leave my browser?
Your ticks live in this browser's local storage and nothing is posted to a server. The exception is deliberate: a go/no-go verdict is exactly what you send a colleague, so Share link encodes the list of ticked item ids, the two decision acknowledgements and your notes into the URL and copies it to your clipboard. Anyone with that link reads all of it, including the notes — which is why the notes field is capped, so the link survives the trip. Consent-gated analytics records that the tool was used, exported, copied or shared and which verdict it reached, never the notes.
What is in the exported document?
Download .md writes cutover-readiness.md: the verdict and its one-line reason, the completion percentage, then every phase with each item as a ticked or unticked box and the critical ones marked, followed by the two go-decision lines and your notes if you wrote any. The Copy button puts the same markdown on your clipboard for a ticket or an email.
Will my checklist survive until cutover weekend?
In the same browser, yes: ticks, acknowledgements and notes are saved locally as you work and restored on your next visit, which is the point when a checklist is worked across days and hand-offs. It is not an account, so a different machine, a private window or cleared site data starts from empty, and Start fresh clears it deliberately. Opening a colleague's shared checklist doesn't overwrite yours unless you press Keep it in this browser.
These answers are about the checklist. What cutover is, how it differs from go-live and what goes wrong on the weekend are covered in the cutover & go-live guide.