precutover

Precutover is a project phase in IT initiatives and system migrations that occurs before the final cutover to the new environment. The goal is to ensure readiness, validate data, and minimize risk ahead of the go-live event. Precutover activities often take place in a controlled window and involve coordination across IT, operations, and business stakeholders.

Typical precutover activities include finalizing the cutover plan and runbook, performing data migration and reconciliation checks, conducting end-to-end testing in a staging or pre-production environment, validating backups and rollback procedures, and preparing monitoring, alerting, and support readiness. Training and communications for users and support staff are also common components.

Prerequisites and key deliverables commonly include approved go/no-go criteria, frozen source systems to prevent data changes during migration, completed data transformation logic, documented rollback procedures, and confirmed resource availability for the cutover weekend or window.

Risks during precutover include data integrity issues, incomplete dependencies, timing misalignment with business processes, insufficient staffing, and lack of a tested rollback plan. Mitigation approaches emphasize rehearsals, dry runs, automated data validation, clear ownership, and formal sign-off before proceeding to cutover.

Precutover sets the stage for the actual go-live and is often contrasted with the cutover, which is the live execution phase where the old system is retired and the new system becomes operational. The term is commonly used in enterprise IT projects such as ERP implementations, cloud migrations, data center relocations, and large software deployments.