Project Management

What is meant by Project Go Live?

Governance

Gary Domingo Project Manager| Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation Philippines

Just wandering since in my own understanding, when we say the Project is going to be Go Live by Jan 1, 2019 for example, isnt it that the Project is already available to use by Jan 1, 2019? If it is already available to users, meaning they are now using the live production system? Isnt it that on Jan. 1, 2019 all the needs of the set up of the Project already been set up and ready to use? So comes Jan 2, theres should be no more implementations or deployment to be done? The Project team will only monitor any issues may arise on Jan 1 that needs to have a support. Am I correct? Thanks

Posted: Sep 26, 2018 8:24 PM (Updated by author: Sep 26, 2018 8:25 PM)

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Lenka Pincot Chief of Staff to the CEO| Project Management Institute Paris, France

Go live means that you release your product, that the project delivered, into a production environment. So for instance if your project was about implementing IT system, go live date means that the system will be used by users in a real environment and processes will be executed with real data, for instance accounting. Prior to go live you perform all the testing, data migrations, training or other preparations and then you Go live. You also better to have a rollback strategy ready in case you experience severe issues after the go live and if there is no roll back possible than you should consider to go with a pilot first.

Posted: Sep 26, 2018 8:39 PM

Gary Domingo Project Manager| Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation Philippines

Thanks much Lenca for this clear answer. Atleast I confirmed what I understand beforehand. This is the right words I am looking. Do you have reference on this like books or any legit sources so that just in case, I can read it for further learning? Because based on my experience, your answer is correct and it gives me more insight.

Posted: Sep 26, 2018 9:02 PM

Lenka Pincot Chief of Staff to the CEO| Project Management Institute Paris, France

I’m sorry Gary, I don’t recall a book. But give this question a bit of time, others will comment and I’m sure some will recommend a further reading source. This forum is packed with highly knowledgeable people.

Posted: Sep 26, 2018 9:21 PM

Srikana Ray

Community Champion

Project Professional, PMP

Go live means the project and/or the product will be live in production or real-time environment for the very first time. It as never available for use for real users or customers before that date. In this case the date is Jan 1, 2019. You could still have implementations or deployments for the product at a later date but that would be a different version or feature or defect/bug fix or another release of the product and project.

Posted: Sep 27, 2018 2:47 AM

Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina

First let me say each organization can define it and its own convenience. Here what I did and I do. The name of the phase in our governance model is "Go Live and Support". The phase objectives are:
-Deployment plan executed
-Shared support and knowledge transfer completed
-Procurement agreements monitored
-Project documentation closed out
-Final handoffs conducted
This phase is executing before Project Close phase in our case.

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2 replies by Anupam and Pench Batta

Sep 27, 2018 7:11 AM

Anupam

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I agree with Sergio. Each organization can define it as per it's convenience. There are white papers on it in PMI library, you can refer to it.

Sep 27, 2018 5:40 PM

Pench Batta

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Great information from all! I also add lessons learned document.

Posted: Sep 27, 2018 5:29 AM

peter littaua Group Head, Enterprise Project Management Group, Office of Strategy Management| Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Paranaque, Philippines

Hi Gary, just to add in my experience the term usually used is System Go-live (Waterfall/SDLC) or Release (Agile/Scrum) instead of "Project is going to be Go Live". In this case system has been transferred to the Prod Environment and will be used for operations. However, as mentioned above, the term Go-live may be different for each organization depending on their standard processes and existing policies.

Posted: Sep 27, 2018 5:46 AM