CutOver Association

“A CutOver is the moment when the old infrastructure and software is switched OFF and the new one is switched ON. It’s the moment where the change is for the first time impacting your business, your people and your processes in the real world”

The “CutOver” is one of the last activities of a project. It is the moment when the developed product is put into production. The product can be a “motorway” which is now used, as well as a railway and office, or is a set of defined processes which are then executed under real conditions –or it is a Software which is then productively used.

For some products it is easy to be used under productive conditions –the new motorway is just opened up. For certain software products that might also be easy, they can just be started and used.

It is getting more complex as soon as there is also a “legacy” system which needs to be stopped or taken over. For example there might be an old motorway, so people would need to be redirected and informed to use the new one. For Software products this is similar, people need to be informed and trained. But the “legacy” of the old software might also include the data which needs to be taken over. That needs to be planed, prepared and done as part of the CutOver.

Then, the right moment must be found to redirect people. Nobody wants to start redirecting people in the “rush hour”, so the right moment must be found when the new motorway should be used. The same is true for software. The right moment needs to be found to change from one system to the other system -taking all dependencies into consideration. So before any CutOver is executed, a certain definition is required on how and when the cutover should happen. Therefore a CutOver Strategy must be created to define the baseline for all later work incl. the definition of the cutover scope, the cutover plan, governance, test and training as well as management.

The CutOver needs to be planned, prepared and executed. It requires dedicated resources who do the CutOver Management for the project. Depending on the complexity of the project this might be one resource or even an overall team.

CutOver Management needs to start with the definition phase when the CutOver strategy needs to be defined. Otherwise, the preparation and then execution needs to start with dedicated resources when the implementation starts – in case of a transformation project with a financial data migration at least 9 months before the CutOver.

A successful and smooth CutOver requires a good CutOver Management and this is key for smooth operations starting the first day after the CutOver.