How to get launch planning right
The gap between knowing this and actually doing it is where most teams lose ground. The short answer to launch planning is that it is mostly a sequence of small decisions, not one big one.
Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.
Why it matters
Never launch on a Friday afternoon. The cost of getting this wrong is rarely visible on the day it happens. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.
The steps
- Establish what you have today before changing anything
- Have a rollback plan you have actually tested
- Announce it once the thing is verifiably working
- Write down the decision so the next person does not re-litigate it
Announce it once the thing is verifiably working. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.
Making it stick
How to tell if yours is fine
Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Three things worth confirming about launch planning before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Announce it once the thing is verifiably working — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
If any of that sounds like a description of your current setup, it is fixable.