This paper describes how to manage a go live situation, a cutover plan and some strategies to manage the same.

1. Anatomy of a Cutover Plan
or
Don’t get caught dead in a go-live
situation
Mahesh Vallampati

2. About the Speaker
• Mahesh Vallampati
– Senior Practice Manager at SmartDog Services
– Senior Sales Consulting Manager at Hotsos.
– Worked at Oracle for nine years
– Director of IT Database Services at a company in
Houston
– Published in Oracle magazine

3. Agenda
• Go Live ecology
• Cutover Overview
• Cutover Plan
• Cutover Templates

4. GO LIVE ECOLOGY

5. Go Live Ecology
• What is a Go-Live Anyway?
– A move from one defined state to another defined state
– Typically supposed to
• Minimize on-going risk
• Cost Effective
• Enhance Business Process
– Involves
• Several Stakeholders
• Co-ordination of tasks
– Usually involves a small defined window of time
• Includes cutover tasks
• Also includes rollback tasks if needed

6. Go Live Ecology – Bus.
Perspective
Go Live
Bus. E
Vol.
B D
A C
TIME
A = Current Business volume, B = Business ramp up
C = Productivity Dip toward shutdown, D = Controlled Business ramp up, E = Stabilization

7. Go-Live Ecology – IT Perspective
Go Live
C
IT
Activities
B D
A
E
Y Z
TIME
A = Overall Testing, B = Plan and Get Ready for Cutover
C = Execute Cutover, D = Support Business Ramp Up E = Steady State Support
Y-Z = Steady State Support

8. CUTOVER OVERVIEW

9. Cutover Definition
• Is A Process
• Execution of Planned Tasks
• By Several Stakeholders
• Step by Step
• Migrate Tested Functionality to Production
• Performed at least once or twice to document issues
and timings
• Variance from cutover for Production should be well
understood
• Lessons should be definitely learnt

10. Cutover characteristics
• Plan well ahead
• Meet Customer Demand
• Ramp down Business, (Close open items, Notify
customers)
• Cutover Activities
• Key Decision point made by stakeholder
– Move forward
– Roll Back
• Go-Live or RollBack
• Business Ramp up

11. Cutover Process
• Pre-Cutover Activities
• Build Production Environment
• Cutover Plan development
• Test Cutover Plan
• Wash/Repeat/Rinse
• Finalize Cutover Plan
• Cutover Activities
• Execute Cutover Plan
• Perform checks
• Go/No Go Decision
• Post Go Live Support
• Issue Management

12. Cutover Plan

13. Cutover Plan
• One document
• Includes all cutover related tasks
• Has a section for rollback also
• Contains stakeholders and their tasks
• Has decision checkpoints
• Has detailed timing information for trial cutovers

14. Cutover Plan
• Facilitates co-ordination between key players
and stakeholders
• Owned by a project manager or a key
stakeholder
• Business and IT own the cutover plan together
• A tool to manage cutover process
• A tool to report progress against cutover tasks

15. Cutover Plan Document
• Needs to be managed very tightly
• Changes to plan made only by cutover team
• Change risk understood and contingency plan in
place

16. Cutover Plan
• Detailed Task List
• Timings and dependencies for each tasks
• Parallel execution and co-ordination of
independent tasks
• A contact list
• Rollback Plan
• Decision Points
• Contains readiness criteria

17. Readiness Criteria
• Criteria
– Site
– Technology
– Training
– Data Migration
– Sustainment
– Functionality
– Cutover Planning
• Criteria Scores
– 1-5
• 1-No Impact
• 2-Low Impact
• 3-Medium Impact
• 4-High Impact
• 5-Show Stopper

18. Risk Scorecard
Criteria/ 1-No 2-Low 3-Med. 4. High 5. Show
Score Impact Impact Impact Impact Stopper
Site
Technology
Training
Data
Migration
Sustainment
Functionality
Cutover
Planning
Totals
Overall Risk Score

19. Contingency Plan

20. Cutover Plans Formats

21. Cutover Plan Formats
• Spreadsheet
– Homegrown
– Created out of necessity
• AIM Document
– PM.030 – Transition and Contingency Plan Document

22. Spreadsheet
• Components
– Document Control
– Resources
• Cutover Escalation
• Post Implementation Support Plan
• On-Site/Remote Resources
• War Room
• Conf. Bridge
– Risk Scorecard/Readiness Criteria
– Cutover Plan
– DR-Restore

23. Document Control
• Version Control
• Owner
• Contributors
• Reviewers
• Issue List

24. Resources
• Cutover Escalation
• Post Implementation Support Plan
• On-Site/Remote Resources
– Name
– Contact (Cell/Home/Office)
– Manager’s Contact
• War Room/Conf. Bridge

25. A note on War Rooms
• War Rooms are effective
– When there are team chemistry issues
– Post Go Live issues are certain
– There are enough resources to staff a war room
around the clock
– It is for a short period
– There is a lot on the line

26. Cutover Plan
• Task
• Owner
• Others Involved
• Dependencies
• Duration
– Planned Start and End
– Actual Start and End
• Variance in duration
• Status
• Notes
• Score
• Process Improvement Opportunity

27. DR-Restore
• Same as Cutover Plan
• Get back to Original State

28. AIM Document PM.030
• PM.030
– Transition and Contingency Plan
– Owned by the Project Manager
– Major Contributors
• DBA Team
• Infrastructure/OS Team
• Development Team
• Functional Team for Setups
– Much easy if done ahead of time

29. PM.030 Sections
• Detailed Transition Plan
• Cutover Contingency Plan
• Preparing for Production
• Production Schedule – First Week

30. PM.030 Sections
• Detailed Transition Plan
– General Tasks
– Detailed Checklist Tasks
• Cutover Contingency Plan
– Contingency Steps
– Upon System Availability
• Preparing for Production
– Approach
• Production Schedule - First Week
– Using the Company Support Infrastructure
– Information Systems Production Feedback Session
– Support Status

31. Walkthrough
• Cutover Plan Spreadsheet
• AIM PM.030 Document

32. Q U E S T I O N S
A N S W E R S