Staged go-live: why we switch on one stage at a time

When an agent is ready to work, we do not switch all of it on at once. We switch it on one stage at a time.

What a stage is. A stage is one piece of the agreed work, taken live on its own. The next piece does not start until the one before it has been accepted.

What accepted means. Each stage is accepted against a check that sits outside the agent. The agent saying it is done does not count. The check is something you can see for yourself: a file that changed, a message that was delivered, a confirmation that came back.

Why one at a time. If something is wrong, it shows up in one small stage, not across the whole job. You can see where it happened, and what came before it has already been checked.

Why the check is outside the agent. An agent can report that it finished when it did not. A check that lives somewhere else does not depend on the agent's word, so "done" means there is evidence for it.

Where this sits in the process. Staged go-live is step four. It follows the written scope and quote, and it comes before handover, where you sign off.

If you have a task in mind, tell us about it.