Story|3 minute read
What good looks like after go-live
Transformation value is won or lost in the run phase—ownership, support models, and the enablement that keeps teams independent.
Go-live gets the celebration, but it is the midpoint of an engagement rather than the end. Whether a programme delivers the value in its business case is usually settled in the months afterwards, in conditions that are much less visible than a launch.
We have inherited enough poorly handed-over systems to recognise the warning signs early.
Signs a handover is going badly
- One person understands the system, and they were a contractor.
- Runbooks were a deliverable, so they exist, and they were last accurate at go-live.
- The client team can operate the system but cannot change it, so the backlog quietly becomes a wish list.
- The original delivery partner is still answering pages six months later—and is comfortable with that arrangement.
What good actually looks like
A good handover is designed at the start of delivery, not negotiated at the end. The receiving team is named before launch and takes part in building the thing they will own. Enablement is scheduled work in the delivery plan, not a two-day knowledge transfer session in the final sprint.
The support model is agreed while there is still time to build for it: who holds the pager, what the response expectations are, which changes the internal team makes and which come to us. And there is a planned exit with a date on it, so ongoing support is a deliberate choice rather than a habit.
The only test that matters
Can the client team ship a meaningful change to the system without us in the room? Not a config tweak—a real change, through their own pipeline, with their own review.
If the answer is yes, the engagement worked. If the answer is no, the system was delivered but the capability was not, and the value case is still theoretical. We would rather find that out in month two, while we are still there to fix it, than in month twelve when it shows up as a renewal conversation.
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