We manage the
unmanageable

We audit the existing state, interview the operators, identify real blockers, and map political landmines. We tell you what will go wrong — not what you want to hear.

Phase 01

What we audit

• Existing system architecture and technical debt
• Current team structure, skills, and capacity gaps
• Data quality, migration complexity, and integrity
• Vendor contracts, SLAs, and integration dependencies

Common red flags we catch

• Sponsors who do not have budget authority
• Legacy systems with no documentation or ownership
• Political resistance disguised as technical concerns
• Unrealistic timelines set by finance, not engineering

Exit criteria

• Risks register reviewed and accepted by steering committee
• Readiness score above 70% on our 100-point framework
• Go/no-go decision documented and signed by all stakeholders

Design the PMO, reporting cadence, decision rights, and escalation paths before any work begins. Build the stage-gate criteria that govern the entire program.

Phase 02

Architecture decisions

• PMO operating model — centralized, federated, or hybrid
• Reporting cadence: weekly war rooms, monthly steering, quarterly board
• Decision rights matrix: who can decide what, and who can escalate
• Escalation protocol: thresholds, triggers, and response times

Stage-gate framework

• Gate 0: Charter approved, budget committed, team mobilized
• Gate 1: Design validated, vendor contracts signed, risk plan accepted
• Gate 2: Build complete, testing passed, cutover plan approved
• Gate 3: Go-live successful, hypercare active, handoff criteria met

Exit criteria

• Governance charter signed by executive sponsor and steering committee
• Stage-gate criteria documented and accepted by all functions
• PMO team onboarded, tools provisioned, and first war room scheduled

Weekly war rooms with no PowerPoint theater. Real-time risk dashboards. Stage-gate reviews where the program passes or gets paused. Adjust the plan in 48 hours, not 48 days.

Phase 03

Execution cadence

• Weekly war rooms: 90 minutes, standing, no slides — raw data only
• Daily stand-ups for build teams, weekly integration checkpoints
• Bi-weekly risk reviews with pre-reads sent 48 hours in advance
• Monthly steering committee with pre-approved agenda and decisions

How we handle problems

• Risk dashboard updated in real time, not at weekly status meetings
• Escalation trigger: any risk rated medium+ must be flagged within 24 hours
• Change control: any scope change >5% requires steering committee approval
• We pause before we accelerate — no phase advances without gate clearance

Exit criteria

• All build deliverables complete and signed off by QA
• User acceptance testing passed with documented exceptions
• Cutover plan dry-run completed with all scenarios tested

Go-live is rehearsed multiple times. Dry runs, mock cutovers, data validation cycles. We do not cut over on a hope. We cut over on a checklist tested and signed off.

Phase 04

Cutover preparation

• Minimum three full dry-run rehearsals with full data volumes
• Rollback triggers defined, documented, and tested end-to-end
• War room staffed 24/7 during cutover window with real-time monitoring
• Communication protocol: who gets notified, when, and how

Validation checklist

• Data integrity: reconciled source-to-target for all critical tables
• Functional validation: top 50 business processes tested by actual users
• Performance validation: load tested at 2x expected peak volume
• Integration validation: all external systems tested with live data

Exit criteria

• All validation sign-offs complete from business, IT, and vendor teams
• Rollback plan archived and war room team demobilized
• Hypercare team briefed and first 48-hour monitoring plan activated