More simulations, prior to going live, will make the final execution easy. It also helps prepare the team regarding what to expect at the time of going live. No matter how much preparation goes into planning a release, there may still be a few last-minute new discoveries. It is important to make sure that you record these new discoveries and address these as needed. Consider the following while executing a release:

• Track the tasks as per the go-live plan and their dependencies.
• Send communications to multiple numbers at a time (on track, ahead, or behind) during the release window (communicate the frequency to all the stakeholders).
• Schedule conference calls with the leadership team to provide updates (you need to be giving them proactive updates rather than having them on your back, asking for updates), as well as the Go-No-Go decisions, at specific intervals. 
• Engage the IT small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and business SMEs for data validation. You need to record these tests (reports from the previous system and the new system) and save the test results. You will need them for your audit. 
• Run through the release validation tests to verify that the functionality is working as expected. If you can hold a good sample of transactions from the previous working day, try to process them in the system and take them from end to end.
  You can hold half a day's worth of orders from a day prior to going live, enter them manually in the new system, and try to take them all the way through invoicing. Verify the reverse logistics as well. Verify access to reports and integrations across multiple systems. 
• Stay alert for upcoming surprises and handle them sooner.

The following diagram shows an example of the go-live's execution plan, as well as the communication plan:

As shown in the preceding diagram, you can use this kind of format to track the execution of the go-live plan, as well as to communicate the progress of its execution with the stakeholders.