Go/No-Go Decision
A go/no-go decision is the formal ruling on whether a release or transition proceeds. It is taken against criteria agreed in advance, each with an owner, a threshold and evidence. The decision, the date, the people present, any waivers granted and the conditions attached to them are recorded. The available outcomes usually include go, no-go and conditional go.
The value of a go/no-go decision lies in the word "against". A decision taken against written criteria is an assessment; a decision taken without them is an opinion formed under schedule pressure. Which is why the criteria are agreed and circulated well before the meeting, and why the meeting itself is short if the preparation was done.
What it contains
The decision is normally recorded on a single sheet, one row per criterion.
| Field | What it records |
|---|---|
| Criterion | The condition being assessed, written so the answer can only be yes or no |
| Area | Technical, data, business readiness, operational support, commercial, governance |
| Owner | The named person who answers for it in the meeting |
| Threshold | What counts as met — a defect count by severity, a reconciliation tolerance, a training completion figure |
| Evidence | What is being relied on: a test report, a reconciliation sheet, a signed acceptance |
| Answer | Met, not met, or met with qualification |
| Waivable | Whether the criterion can be waived at all, decided before the meeting rather than during it |
| Waiver approver and condition | Who accepted the shortfall, and what has to happen afterwards as a result |
The record closes with the decision itself, the date and time, the attendees, and the next checkpoint if the outcome was conditional. The Go/No-Go Checklist (Excel) holds this structure with the waiver column built in.
How it is used
Most go-lives have more than one such decision. An early one confirms the transition can start — environments, freeze, staffing — and a later one, often inside the window, confirms that the irreversible steps should begin. Where the transition is phased, each phase carries its own.
The chair's job is to take each criterion from its owner rather than to canvass the room, so that a "not met" is stated by the person who knows. Waivers are the part that needs discipline: a criterion waived without a named approver and a follow-up condition is simply a criterion that was dropped. The guide to running a go/no-go meeting covers the preparation, the chairing and how waivers are recorded.
Where it goes wrong
Criteria written the day before are the most common problem — the meeting then negotiates the standard and the assessment at the same time. The second is a decision with only two possible answers in theory but one in practice, because the date has been announced to customers and no-go is politically unavailable. That is worth knowing before the meeting, not during it.
The third is unrecorded waivers. Four small waivers granted separately can amount to a substantially different release, and without a list nobody sees the aggregate. The fourth is a conditional go with no follow-up checkpoint, which is a full go with a caveat that nobody tracks.
The fifth is evidence taken on trust. A criterion answered with an assurance rather than a document is not an assessment, and the difference tends to surface a day later when the reconciliation sheet is finally produced. Naming the evidence for each criterion in advance is what keeps the meeting short: owners arrive with the document, the answer is read from it, and the discussion is reserved for the criteria that are genuinely not met.
Related terms
See also go-live, cutover plan and rollback plan.
Questions
Who attends a go/no-go meeting?
The criterion owners and the person with authority to decide. Typically business owner, technical lead, data lead, test lead, support or service owner, and the vendor where one is delivering.
What is a conditional go?
A decision to proceed with named shortfalls, each carrying an approver, a mitigating action and a date by which it is resolved, plus a checkpoint at which the conditions are reviewed.
When should the go/no-go meeting be held?
Late enough that the evidence is real and early enough that a no-go can still be acted on — before the irreversible steps of the transition begin.
What is recorded after the decision?
The outcome, the date and time, who was present, the answer against each criterion, any waivers with their approvers, and the next checkpoint if the go was conditional.