How to Run a Go/No-Go Meeting

How to prepare the criteria, chair the meeting and record the decision — so the outcome is evidence-based rather than a matter of who is most senior in the room.

A go/no-go meeting is the formal decision point at which a named decision maker confirms, against pre-agreed criteria, whether a release proceeds into its cutover window. It is not a status update and it is not a readiness review; those happen earlier. By the time the meeting starts, the only question left should be whether the criteria are met.

Almost every failed go/no-go has the same root cause: the criteria were not written down beforehand, so the meeting became a discussion of sentiment. Sentiment in a room containing the sponsor who wants the date has a predictable outcome.

Two weeks before: write the criteria

Each criterion must be answerable yes or no by someone other than the person who wants to go live. Compare:

• “Data migration reconciliation within 0.1% variance, signed by the data owner” — a criterion.
• “Migration looks OK” — a feeling.

Cover, at minimum: technical readiness (build complete, defects triaged, rollback rehearsed), data readiness (dry run at full volume, reconciliation agreed, owner sign-off), business readiness (training delivered, support briefed, workarounds documented), operational readiness (monitoring in place, on-call agreed, vendors available) and governance (change approved, freeze scheduled, comms drafted). The go-live checklist sets out each of these in full.

Mark each criterion absolute or waivable, and name who can waive it. Doing this two weeks out is a calm conversation. Doing it in the meeting is a negotiation.

Who attends, and who decides

Attendance and authority are different things and should be stated separately.

• One named decision maker, with a named deputy. Usually the sponsor or a delivery director.
• Criterion owners — the people who answer for each area, in person. A criterion reported by someone relaying a message is not evidence.
• The chair, who is often the project manager and whose job is to keep the meeting to the criteria rather than to advocate.

Keep it small. A go/no-go with twenty attendees becomes a briefing, and briefings do not make decisions.

The agenda that works

1. The recommendation, stated up front. The chair says what they are recommending and why. The meeting then tests that position rather than drifting toward one.
2. Criteria walkthrough — by exception. Read out only the criteria that are not green, with the owner speaking to each.
3. Waivers. For each unmet criterion: what is the risk of proceeding, what is the mitigation, who is accepting it.
4. The decision. Go, no-go, or go with named conditions — stated explicitly by the decision maker.
5. Immediate next steps, including the comms that go out within the hour.

Thirty minutes is usually enough. If it needs two hours, the readiness work was not finished and the honest answer is probably no-go.

Handling a conditional go

“Go, provided X is resolved by Friday” is legitimate and common. It becomes dangerous when nobody checks on Friday.

Every condition needs an owner, a deadline before the point of no return, and an agreed action if it is missed — including who can stop the cutover at that point. A condition without a stop route is not a condition; it is a hope.

Recording the decision

Within the hour, circulate: the decision, the criteria status at the time it was made, any waivers with who accepted them, the conditions with owners and deadlines, and who was present.

This is not bureaucracy. If the go-live goes badly, the difference between a blameless review and a search for someone to blame is whether the record exists. If it goes well, it is the evidence that the process works and is worth repeating.

The failure modes to watch for

The meeting held after the point of no return. If contractors are booked, the freeze has started and the comms have gone out, the decision was made days ago. Hold the meeting while no is still possible.

Criteria invented in the room. Usually by whoever wants to proceed, and always more lenient than the ones you would have written a fortnight earlier.

Green because reporting green is easier. Ask criterion owners for evidence, not status. “Restore tested on the 14th, log attached” is evidence; “backups are fine” is not.

No named authority to say stop. Escalation is usually documented upward. The person watching reconciliation numbers at 2am needs explicit authority to halt, or they will wait for someone senior to wake up.