TSA Exit Acceleration
Score the program before the program scores you.
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A TSA exit readiness assessment is the buyer-side scorecard for whether the Newco is set up to exit each workstream on schedule. The work is short, the output is specific, and the value is in catching slip months before the invoice reveals it. The assessment plugs directly into the TSA exit strategy framework.
A TSA exit readiness assessment measures whether the Newco can take a service off the TSA on the date it has committed to. The measurement is not theoretical. It looks at the operating evidence. Is there a named owner. Is there a replacement decision. Is there a project plan with milestones. Is the dependency chain understood. Is the cutover rehearsed.
The assessment runs across the nine standard workstreams. Each workstream gets a score on five dimensions. Decision maturity. Replacement option clarity. Operational capability. Cutover plan. Risk posture. The aggregate score is less useful than the dimension scores. A workstream with strong decision maturity but no cutover plan is a different problem to a workstream with a cutover plan but no replacement decision.
The assessment is a snapshot. It tells the buyer where the program is on a specific date, not where it is heading. Repeating the assessment monthly gives the operating partner the trajectory. Across multiple carve-outs, the trajectory predicts the exit landing better than any single milestone date.
The output is one page per workstream and a portfolio summary. The summary is what the operating partner reviews. The detail is what the workstream lead acts on.
A five point scale gives enough granularity to differentiate without inviting false precision. Each level has a written threshold so the score is defensible in governance and reproducible across reviewers.
Level 1. Not started. No owner, no decision, no plan. The workstream is at risk of exit slip on the order of months.
Level 2. Owner named, scope drafted. The work has a leader but no commitments. Slip risk is in the order of weeks.
Level 3. Plan documented, decisions made. The work has a path, but execution has not been pressure-tested. Slip risk depends on dependencies.
Level 4. Plan in flight, milestones tracked. The work is producing artefacts on the schedule the plan committed to. Slip risk is moderate and known.
Level 5. On schedule, cutover rehearsed. The work is operational and the cutover has been simulated under realistic conditions. Slip risk is low.
The first assessment runs around day ninety, when the exit plan should be documented and the cadence should be operational. Earlier than that the scores are noise, because the program has not had time to produce evidence. Later than that and the assessment is reactive rather than predictive.
After the first assessment, run the same scorecard monthly. The trajectory matters more than the snapshot. A workstream moving from Level 2 to Level 3 is improving. A workstream staying at Level 3 for two months is stalling. A workstream dropping from Level 4 to Level 3 has lost a piece of the program, usually a key person leaving the Newco.
For PE platforms with multiple active TSAs, the operating partner reviews the portfolio summary monthly. A workstream below Level 3 across two consecutive assessments is escalated. A workstream below Level 4 sixty days before its committed exit date is escalated. Standardized escalation rules make the operating partner's review fast.
The assessment also runs as a checkpoint before extension fee discussions. If the buyer wants to challenge an extension fee on seller fault grounds, the assessment is part of the evidence package. Documented readiness is harder to argue against than verbal assertions.
Decision maturity. Has the buyer decided how the service will be delivered post-TSA. Possible answers are in house, third-party vendor, or eliminated. An undecided workstream is a Level 1 by definition, regardless of how much activity is happening.
Replacement option clarity. Has the buyer identified the specific vendor, system, or internal team that will replace the service. Vague answers like "we will hire a person" or "we will select a vendor" indicate Level 2. Specific answers with named providers indicate Level 3 or higher.
Operational capability. Can the Newco actually operate the service when the TSA ends. This is the dimension that tests for the gap between strategy and execution. A vendor contracted but not implemented is Level 3. A vendor implemented and running in parallel with the TSA service is Level 4.
Cutover plan. Is there a documented sequence for moving from the TSA service to the replacement. A cutover plan has dates, owners, dependencies, rollback procedures, and a communications plan. Without each of those, the cutover plan is incomplete.
Risk posture. What are the known risks to the cutover and what is the mitigation. Acceptable answers identify two to four specific risks with named owners and dated mitigations. Vague risk language indicates the workstream has not yet pressure-tested its own plan.
A workstream scoring Level 1 or 2 at day ninety needs an intervention, not a coaching conversation. The buyer-side fix is one of three options. Reassign the workstream to a stronger owner. Bring in external capacity for the duration. Or rescope the exit date to acknowledge the slip and begin extension fee planning.
A workstream scoring Level 3 at day ninety is on track but fragile. The remediation is to attach the workstream to the governance committee weekly until it reaches Level 4. Most Level 3 workstreams move to Level 4 within four to six weeks under that attention.
A workstream scoring Level 4 or 5 needs to stay there. The risk in a Level 4 workstream is complacency. The exit lead reviews these monthly to ensure they do not drift downward. Across multiple carve-outs the pattern is that a Level 4 workstream stays at Level 4 if it is reviewed and slips to Level 3 if it is not.
Remediation is cheaper at day ninety than at month nine. A workstream that scores Level 1 at day ninety and gets attention can reach Level 4 by month six. A workstream that scores Level 1 at month nine has run out of time. The cost of attention compounds the longer the buyer waits.
The assessment is most valuable when it is the standing item on the monthly governance agenda. Each workstream lead presents the previous month's score and the current month's score. The committee discusses any workstream that moved down or stalled. Decisions made in the committee are documented in the minutes and attached to the workstream's record.
Sellers sometimes object to the assessment on the grounds that it is a buyer-side construct. The buyer's response is that the assessment is the buyer's view of buyer-side readiness, not a judgment of seller performance. The seller is welcome to maintain its own scorecard. The committee discusses both views when they differ.
Operating partners use the assessment as the standardized format across one PE platform. A portfolio of Newcos reporting on the same scorecard makes patterns visible. IT typically lags. Treasury typically leads. Procurement typically surprises in either direction. Knowing the pattern at the portfolio level lets the operating partner allocate attention before the gaps become invoice events.
A TSA exit readiness assessment is short, repeatable, and predictive. Run it at day ninety. Run it monthly thereafter. The trajectory it produces is the most useful operating signal in the entire TSA lifecycle.
Workstream by workstream, what the buyer should have in place by day ninety post-close.
Read the article →The fifteen milestones that decide whether a TSA exit lands on schedule, and how each is enforced through governance.
Read the article →The patterns that cause TSA exits to slip, and the early signals that surface them in the governance forum.
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