One of the most important criteria to determine an organization's readiness to go-live is whether your key end users and stakeholders are comfortable and are signed off on the new ERP system. The following list covers a few important considerations and criteria that you can use to evaluate whether you are ready to go-live:

• UAT sign-off: It is very critical that user acceptance testing (UAT) has been performed. Make sure that the business users have tested the system using real business scenarios, including integrations, reporting, data migration, and so on. All the business leaders should have signed off the testing for their areas. Any open issue needs to be documented. Review any critical issues that are open, and identify their impact on go-live and whether there are any possible workarounds.
• Training sign-off: The business teams should be comfortable with the training that they've received and should have access to the training documents. People play a key role in your ERP success, and the end users across all areas need to be comfortable with using a new system and the business process changes. All the business leaders should have signed off on the training for their teams.

• Go-live plan: This is a step-by-step, hour-by-hour plan that is reviewed by all the IT/business teams involved in the release, including the rollback plan and an overall timing to fit within the downtime window. The go-live plan should include the validation scenarios and processes that have been defined by the business. Use the go-live plan in the previous iterations of the release simulations (including UAT and data validations). Make sure that the go-live plan has been signed off by the business and IT stakeholders.
• Support plan: The support plan includes the support resources per area, their location and schedule, the issue communication process (templates for providing issue description, screenshots, business impact, severity, and the information and tools for tracking or logging issues), triage, and loop back with the business teams. You need to ensure that an adequate budget has been approved for support (prior to going live). You don't want to be in a situation where you have to discuss dollars with the customer/business leaders while the business is impacted due to system issues. Also, you need to have a budget so that you don't lose the resources that would be required to fix these issues. Review the support plan with all the stakeholders and users to ensure that the process for logging the issues and communication is clear. Set up business and IT war rooms at different locations; the handover process between support teams can help with better communication.
• Operations team's readiness: The IT operations team needs to have enough knowledge to support the new system. The team should be comfortable with the monitoring of services/processes within the application and in LCS. It is important to get a sign-off from the IT operations team.
• External sign-offs and communication: External sign-off as applicable for the business is a must, for example, sign-off from the bank for check/electronic payments testing, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) customers, vendors testing, and auditors. Get sign-offs from the involved parties and make sure everyone is aware of the activities they need to perform.

Sign-offs will help the team work toward a common goal and help make the go-live decision.