TSA Exit Acceleration
Cutover planned, rehearsed, landed.
Fixed-fee proposal in 48 hours. Senior team on day one. The first conversation is always free.
TSA exit application cutover planning is the discipline that sequences the move from seller systems to Newco target systems with the business still operating. The cutover is the moment the program is judged. A clean cutover validates 12 months of work. A failed cutover undoes it. Disciplined buyers plan the cutover with the same intensity as the rest of the TSA exit strategy program, then rehearse it three times before they run it for real.
The first decision is the cutover model. Big bang means every application moves at the same time over a single weekend. Phased means the applications move in waves over weeks or months. Both models work. Both have failure modes. The disciplined buyer picks deliberately based on the dependency map between applications, the cost of running parallel environments, and the business tolerance for a single high stakes weekend.
Big bang is the right choice when the applications are tightly coupled, the data flows are bidirectional, and the cost of running parallel integrations is prohibitive. Big bang concentrates risk into one window. The rehearsals are extensive. The rollback plan is rehearsed. The hypercare team is assembled. The window is typically 48 to 72 hours over a weekend with extended business close before and after.
Phased is the right choice when the applications are loosely coupled, the data flows can be bridged with temporary integrations, and the business can tolerate a longer overall transition. Phased reduces the size of each cutover but extends the total program duration and increases the integration burden. Each phase is a mini cutover with its own rehearsals, sign offs, and hypercare. The integration platform pattern that supports phased cutovers is covered in carve-out integration platform rebuild.
The cutover plan is a minute by minute task list, not a milestone chart. Every task has a name, an owner, a start time, a duration, a dependency, and an acceptance criterion. The plan is built bottom up from the workstreams, integrated by the program PMO, and walked through by the senior team. The walkthrough exposes dependencies that the workstreams missed and forces the team to commit to the timing.
The plan has five phases. Cutoff, where the seller systems stop accepting transactions and the data is extracted. Migration, where the data is transformed and loaded into Newco systems. Configuration, where the Newco systems are configured for go live and the integrations are activated. Validation, where the business validates that the new systems work and the data is correct. And go live, where the business resumes operations in Newco. Each phase has a defined exit criterion and a go or no go decision.
Go or no go decisions are made at defined checkpoints by named individuals with defined authority. The decision is yes, no, or hold. Hold means the team has identified a defect and needs a defined period to resolve it before the next checkpoint. The program director chairs the go or no go calls. The decisions are documented in the cutover log within five minutes. The cutover log becomes the artifact that the business and the auditors review after the event.
The dependencies that kill timelines are the ones that cross workstreams and that no single workstream owns. The HR system cutover depends on the payroll provider's file format. The finance system cutover depends on the bank integration. The order management cutover depends on the EDI integrations to the top customers. Each of these dependencies sits at the boundary between two parties, and the boundary is where ownership tends to slip.
The dependency map is built in the first 30 days of cutover planning. Every application that touches another application is listed. Every integration that touches an external party is listed. Each integration has a named owner from each side, a defined test, and a defined acceptance date. Integrations that are not tested by the acceptance date are escalated to the governance committee. The buyer's program director chases the named owners on both sides every week.
External party dependencies are the hardest to manage because the buyer has no direct authority over them. Banks, payroll providers, EDI hubs, regulators, customers. Each external party has its own change schedule, its own testing windows, and its own acceptance criteria. The cutover plan accommodates the external party schedules, not the other way around. The pattern of bringing external parties into the cutover early is part of the day one customer and vendor communication playbook.
The cutover is run from a command center. Physical room or virtual room, the rules are the same. One program director. One PMO chief who tracks the plan. One technical lead. One business lead. One communications lead. The workstream leads attend on rotation as their tasks come up. The command center is staffed 24 hours during the cutover window. Shift handovers are written, not verbal, and signed by both shifts.
The command center publishes status every two hours. The status template is fixed. Tasks completed in the last window. Tasks in progress. Issues identified. Decisions needed. Next two hours. The audience is the governance committee, the executive sponsor, and the business leadership. The status is read in 60 seconds, not parsed. The discipline of the fixed format reduces the burden on the leaders and improves the signal to noise.
Issues are triaged on a defined severity scale. Severity one issues block the cutover and require an immediate decision from the program director. Severity two issues require a workaround and a follow up. Severity three issues are logged for resolution during hypercare. The severity scale is published before the cutover, agreed by the governance committee, and enforced during the cutover. Without a published scale, every issue becomes a severity one in the moment, and the team is overwhelmed.
Hypercare is the four to eight week window after cutover where the program team remains active and resolves issues that surface in production use. The team size is larger than the steady state operating team. The response times are tighter. The escalation path is shorter. The acceptance for hypercare exit is that the issue rate has returned to normal and the open issue count is below a defined threshold.
The first month end close after cutover is the proof point. The close runs, the numbers tie, the audit trail is intact, and the consolidation lands on the regular schedule. Until the first close is complete, the cutover is not finished. The discipline is to plan the cutover so that the first close has enough runway. Cutover one week before close is high risk. Cutover one month before close is the standard. Cutover two months before close is conservative and recommended for first time programs.
The closeout pack documents what was delivered, what was deferred, and what was learned. It includes the cutover log, the issue register, the reconciliation pack, and the hypercare exit memo. It is signed by the program director, the executive sponsor, and the workstream leads. It becomes the basis for closing out the seller's TSA obligations and for releasing the program team. The disciplines that drive a clean closeout are covered in our TSA exit acceleration service.
How to move data from seller systems to Newco without breaking month end or losing history.
Read the article →When parallel running is worth the cost and when it doubles the bill without buying confidence.
Read the article →The rollback plan that the buyer needs, and the threshold for when to use it during a cutover.
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