It's the 11th Hour the Curtain is Going Up

The day has arrived after months of hard work building and testing the new system. You are in the go-live phase of the project. You should have an implementation timeline tasks in your project plan. The timeline will summarize all the required steps to implement the new system.

The timeline should contain:

• The timeline is like the program for a play that lists the cast and acts. The audience wants to know ahead of time what to expect. Your stakeholders want to know the estimated time of completing the go-live.
• List all key contacts with cell number so you can confer with them should issues arise.
• Give a brief summary of all the steps in the implementation and list who is performing the step.
• Estimate the time in each step and include some padding in it. Estimate time in quarter hour, half hour and one hour increments. 
• Make sure you have a back out plan should a situation occur that impedes a successful implementation. You need to give a good estimate on how long you will need to back out the implementation at the designated point of no return.
• Highlight a key step in the implementation that means you are at the point of no return. You can only go forward now at this point. Any issues encountered will have to be addressed on the fly and resolved to keep moving along in the implementation. Evaluate with your team at this point that you all are confident that you can continue the implementation. If you are not comfortable contact your key decision maker to ask for extended time to address the areas of concern or back out the implementation.
• Send an update that the system is up and ready to use.
• Take a bow the curtain is coming down now after your successful implementation.