Command Center: Setting Up Round-the-Clock Monitoring During Cutover

Abstract

Cutover is one of the most critical and complex phases of a divestiture. To help manage the complexity, it is important to set up dedicated teams and processes to govern cutover execution. This setup is known as a “command center.”

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1 Command Center: Overview

Cutover is one of the most critical and complex phases of a divestiture. To help manage the complexity, it is important to set up dedicated teams and processes to govern cutover execution. This setup is known as a “command center.”

A command center is a central coordination unit that oversees cutover activities, facilitates coordination across teams (i.e., multiple information technology (IT) and business teams), and resolves issues through effective decision making. If a cutover involves multiple regions (e.g., Asia-Pacific (APJ) , Americas (AMS ), and Europe and the Middle East (EMEA)), more than one command center may be required, each acting as a central hub that oversees a specific region.

Command center activities include:

• Managing cutover execution of IT and business milestones (e.g., application code release, business validation, go-live)

• Coordinating cross-functional communications between vendors and partners

• Monitoring downtime of business processes and IT applications

• Serving as a single point of escalation for change management and critical issues

Generally, the objective of a command center is to help ensure a successful cutover for a separation or divestiture by providing direction and clarity on cutover-related issues, assessing risks, and executing actions to resolve issues quickly. Hence, not establishing a command center can pose a great risk to the success of a divestiture.

However, a command center does not provide support for non-cutover-related issues (e.g., production issues), does not serve as help desk support, and is not responsible for the frontline execution of cutover activities, which are performed by business and IT applications teams.

2 Command Center: A Framework

In order to set up a command center, a robust framework is needed to manage all aspects of the cutover—people and organization, operating procedures, and reporting and metrics.

2.1 People and Organization

People and organization are cornerstones of the command center framework and include the following:

• Structure: The first order of business is to establish a command center structure that defines the team and the communication flow. Generally, a command center is organized into a multi-layer hierarchy. The number of levels in the hierarchy is primarily driven by the scale of the cutover and the organizational structure of the company. At a minimum, the command center should have two hierarchy levels, in which the lower-level coordinates with the IT teams for activities related to the cutover plan and the upper level acts as final escalation point for critical issues.

• Roles and Responsibilities: Each command center team should have clearly defined roles and responsibilities established using either the RACI model (responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed) or the CAIRO (consulted, accountable, informed, responsible, and omitted) model. We recommend the CAIRO model for quickness of decision making.

• Staffing: Staffing in command center involves mapping resources (i.e., people from IT and business teams) to all the defined roles. Depending on the criticality and volume of cutover activities, a company can decide to have dedicated resources staffed for command center or have resources focused part time on command center and part time on other businesses as usual activities.

• Training: All command center resources should be trained prior to the command center launch. The command center planning team should develop training materials and playbooks as well as conduct simulations to familiarize the resources with command center operating procedures and methodology.

2.2 Operating Procedures

Operating procedures are essential to an effective command center framework and include the following:

• Criticality Levels: The criticality level for a cutover activity indicates the level of active monitoring and leadership involvement required during cutover. Criticality levels are typically based on the cutover task volume and criticality of the applications undergoing cutover. For example, when critical applications (e.g., enterprise resource planning (ERP) or finance IT systems) undergo cutover, they are labeled with the highest criticality level.

  For example, a Fortune 500 company decided to set up command centers for its separation cutovers using defense readiness condition (DEFCON¹) levels , an alert system used by the US armed forces, which can range from high criticality (DEFCON ONE) to low criticality (DEFCON FOUR).

• Location: The command center location is typically based on:

  • Number of countries affected by the cutover

  • Where the majority of teams are located

  • Logistical challenges such as travel time, office space, and network connectivity

Key responsibilities of the command center include:

• Reporting: A reporting cadence is defined based on the criticality level of the cutover tasks involved. Activities with a high criticality level may require round-the-clock reporting between leadership and execution teams.

• Change Management: Change management refers to the management of changes to the cutover plan, which can have a major impact on the overall cutover schedule due to multiple downstream interdependencies. One missed task can cause hours of delay to all downstream go-live activities.

• Issue Escalation: The command center serves as a centralized point of issue escalation for cutover execution teams. The command center communicates escalation points for critical and non-critical applications and establishes guidelines for top-down and bottom-up issue escalation.

A standard method of tracking cutover progress and communicating the status of cutover activities and issues to stakeholders is essential to an effective command center setup. Clear reporting metrics and tools to track command center operations are necessary for this.

2.3 Reporting and Metrics

• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) : KPIs measure the overall progress of the cutover and alert leadership to any cutover issues. Some common KPIs include metrics for the number of total applications that have completed cutover, the number of open issues, the number of late/backlogged tasks, and the number of applications in blackout.

• Reporting Dashboards : Automated dashboards can help save time during complex and large cutovers by highlighting cutover progress, off-track tasks, and issues. For small divestitures, command centers can track cutover progress manually through conference calls and emails.

• Reporting Cadence : The reporting cadence helps maintain consistent communication between the command centers and leadership teams through status calls, handoff calls (between regions), and progress reports. A well-defined cadence identifies stakeholders and defines the frequency of calls and status reports.

Fig. 25.1

Command Center Strategy Framework

The above framework serves as a guideline. Each transaction is unique and poses different challenges. Hence, it is impossible to adopt one singular approach. Instead, the above framework should be revised based on the complexity of the in-scope cutover. Five factors that drive the complexity and magnitude of the entire command center strategy include:

• 1. Organization Size: An organization’s size helps determine the operating procedures and staffing levels required for the command center. Large organizations with complex applications need a strong governance structure and skilled IT and business resources for the command center.

• 2. Organizational Structure (Levels of Operation): In many organizations, the business either has its own IT teams (e.g., finance IT team, supply chain IT team) or a centralized IT team, which need to be factored into the organizational structure.

• 3. Volume and Criticality of Applications Undergoing Cutover: The volume and criticality of applications undergoing cutover defines the level of and staffing needed for the command center.

• 4. Location and Logistics: The location of the command center should balance the geographical distribution of application teams and leadership. The ideal location should have leadership presence to help ensure fast decision making.

A deep dive into the components of the command center will help clarify its responsibilities.

3 People and Organization

During a divestiture, it is not just IT applications that are separated but also employees and assets (i.e., offices, equipment). The cutover of IT applications and employees can pose a huge risk to the transaction. For example, employees who are being let go by the parent or seller company may lose the incentive to proactively work on cutover activities and may choose not to cooperate. The command center strategy must manage such challenges.

3.1 Command Center Structure

Command centers are usually geographically distributed and multitiered. If the leadership team and cutover execution teams operate out of a single geographical location, a two-tiered command center can be set up. However, if the leadership and cutover execution teams are located in different geographical locations, a global command center should be established with a “follow-the-sun” (i.e., a round-the-clock model in which issues can be handled by and passed between command centers situated in different time zones across the world to increase responsiveness and reduce delays) model in which each command center is responsible for a specific region.

Establishing at least a two-tier command center structure is recommended, with the highest chain of command dominated by the global command center (GCC) , which is responsible for acting as the topmost escalation point and providing updates to executive leadership. The second tier is at the business unit (BU) level , which is closer to execution and helps the execution teams with resources, infrastructure, and information support. A single-layer command center structure should generally be avoided as there are different stakeholders across organization levels and geographies that need to be managed.

Key functions of Tier 1 command centers (e.g., global command center in Fig. 25.2):

• Leads communications and provides timely updates to executive leadership and external stakeholders (e.g., customers and partners)

• Manages and maintains the master schedule of the cutover program

Fig. 25.2

Command Center Structure

Key functions of Tier 2 command centers (e.g., IT infrastructure, IT applications, and business teams):

• Supports frontline execution of activities across application and business teams

• Manages the daily schedule of cutover activities

• Directs resources to the appropriate teams as and when requested

• Logs and supports triaging of cutover issues

In many organizations, the IT operations team is separate from the IT project team. The IT operations team focuses on IT service operations related to application support, infrastructure, and help desk support. In such cases, a three-tier command center structure can also be established in which the GCC is responsible for acting as the highest escalation point, while the IT operations command center is responsible for working with business teams and providing updates to the GCC. Business and IT teams can still reach out to the GCC directly but will be expected to work more closely with the IT operations command center team as the immediate point of escalation and support.

Fig. 25.3

Command Center Roles

3.2 Staffing

When finalizing the command center staffing levels, consider the following two things:

• Roles and responsibilities needed in the command center

• Criticality levels based on complexity and volume of applications undergoing cutover

Based on these factors, critical roles should be staffed during criticality level 1 and criticality level 2 when the most critical applications for the business unit are undergoing cutover.

Fig. 25.4

Sample Command Center Staffing Roster

3.3 Resource Training

Simply staffing the command center with employees will not make the command center successful; instead, those employees must be trained on the different command center operating protocols in order to quickly assess the impact and act on cutover-related issues. This training is done through mock cutovers, simulation exercises, and workshops.

3.4 Command Center Roles and Responsibilities

Role definition models such as RACI or CAIRO should be leveraged to define command center roles and responsibilities. The CAIRO model is a responsibility assignment matrix that enables fast decision making by removing people not required in decision making.

There are multiple threads in a command center, including issue, milestone, and task tracking, as well as business engagement, communications, reporting, and logistics. The RACI and CAIRO models can be used to distribute the roles and responsibilities for these different threads. Figure 25.5 uses the CAIRO model to assign roles and responsibilities for issue management.

Fig. 25.5

CAIRO Model for Global Command Center Roles

Command center roles can be broadly divided into three categories: leadership roles, subject matter experts (SMEs), and facilitators and execution teams.

• Leadership Roles: There are two primary types of leadership roles: cutover leader and master scheduler.

  The cutover leader is responsible for the following:

  • Global point of contact for overall cutover execution, decision making, reporting, and escalation management

  • Provides regular updates to executives and drives investigation of class issues as needed

  • Responsible for business continuity and risk reduction

  The master scheduler is responsible for any changes to the master cutover plan. In case of any changes to the plan for an application, the master scheduler assesses the impact of the change on other interdependent systems and processes and approves the change or requests a hold based on this assessment.

• Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) : SMEs come from various business units (i.e., supply chain, finance) and have expertise and knowledge of the business processes, applications, and data needed by the business unit. SMEs should be staffed both at the business command center level and the GCC level. The GCC typically staffs more experienced people in the organization, preferably from upper management (e.g., regional delivery leader) since they directly interact with executives and must have the authority and influence to remove organizational roadblocks. In case of any cutover-related issue, the SMEs play a crucial role in understanding the impact, getting resources together, and providing a solution.

• Facilitators and Execution Teams: The facilitators in the command center bridge the gap between the leadership team and the execution teams on the ground. They have expertise in command center operations and processes, proactively monitor execution progress, and expedite issue escalation to help ensure timely action from leadership. Since not all organizations have a flat structure, bridging the communication gap becomes very important for the high-risk operation of a command center in which every moment matters. Key responsibilities of facilitators include:

  • Providing analysis support and regular updates to the cutover leader

  • Monitoring and reporting on cutover activities and issues

  • Escalating any issues to shift leaders

  The execution teams include representatives from IT and the business who actually move the needle by performing and closing tasks like business validation, data migration, making code changes, and handing off interdependent applications. Project managers from the business unit’s IT team also form part of this team as they are responsible for tracking progress and updating the status of all finished tasks for their projects.

4 Operating Procedures

Before a command center is operationalized, a command center training manual or playbook should be created highlighting the rules of the road. This playbook will help each command center member understand key procedures and reporting cadences to leadership.

4.1 Command Center Criticality Level

Cutover is the most important part of any separation execution, and criticality levels provide a way to measure the criticality of the cutover period. Based on cutover activities (i.e., number of tasks ending on a day, number of applications in cutover execution on a particular day, number of critical applications in blackout), each day of cutover execution is mapped to one of the criticality levels in the DEFCON model .

Key potential benefits of using the criticality level approach are outlined below:

• Provides a clear communication to all stakeholders in the command center on the level of alertness required.

• Useful in managing expectations and has helped to ensure the right level of preparedness in the command center for orchestrating cutover.

Based on the criticality level, a command center can operate in physical or virtual mode; for example, for a high criticality level scenario, it is almost always necessary to have a physical command center. However, if the criticality level is low (i.e., few applications undergoing cutover), the command center may operate virtually.

Fig. 25.6

DEFCON Levels Defined in a Fortune 500 Separation Cutover

4.2 Command Center Location and Logistics Strategy

The command center is usually staffed 24X7, and depending on the spread of resources, it could be global or regional. To provide an example, in a recent divestiture deal for a Fortune 50 high-tech company based in the United States, three physical command centers were set up in the APJ, EMEA, and AMS regions to facilitate cutover activities in these respective regions. The command centers were set up in three regions because the applications that were part of the deal had end users and application teams from multiple countries across the globe. A round-the-clock, follow-the-sun model helped the company oversee and monitor the progress of the cutover. If the scope of the transaction is less complex and only involves countries from nearby geographies (e.g., the United States, Mexico, and Canada), it may be more efficient to set up only one physical command center.

4.3 Change Management Control Process

During cutover, changes made to one project plan or schedule may affect the cutover of interdependent applications and have an adverse effect on the entire cutover timeline. Project plans must undergo a change management process for any changes in task schedule once the cutover execution has started. Typically, a workflow-based process or tool should be developed to request and manage changes.

4.4 Issue Escalation

Issues can be escalated using either a top-down (i.e., the GCC finds an issue and escalates it to the concerned business unit) or bottom-up (i.e., business units reach out to the GCC for help on cutover-specific issues) method. Since cutover issues can have significant business impacts, it is necessary that all teams involved in cutover realize the importance of proactively monitoring and escalating issues. The worst possible scenario occurs when teams are sitting on an issue trying to resolve it, when escalating it through the proper command center channels would help resolve it. Hence, specific guidelines should be established so that all teams understand the escalation process and escalation point.

5 Reporting and Metrics

Command centers need real-time reports to assess issues and take quick actions. Organizations can use online reporting tools or create custom dashboards to track project milestone updates during command center operation. These project plans should be maintained by their respective project managers using project planning tools. Project managers can update each milestone of the project plan as and when the related cutover activities are completed. Time is a critical factor, and minutes lost due to delayed reporting could result in disruption to the business.

5.1 Reporting KPIs

Before the command center is operationalized, it is critical to define KPIs to track progress. KPIs for the GCC should be different than those used in lower-level command centers. The GCC is more interested in understanding the impact of issues on the overall cutover schedule and key milestones such as go-live. The GCC may not care about a delay in a cutover task that does not have a material impact on the cutover schedule. Similarly, command centers at lower level should use more granular KPIs to anticipate any issues.

5.2 Real-Time Reporting Dashboards

If the scope of a cutover is large and complex, developing real-time dashboards can save a lot of time and hassle during cutover. For small divestitures, command centers can track cutover progress by manually updating data from multiple sources. While this process can be slow, tedious, and prone to errors due to the manual steps involved, it is a workable solution when not a lot of applications are involved. However, if the scope of the cutover includes more than 100 applications, web-based dashboards should be set up to track progress using visualization tools.

Fig. 25.7

Sample Reporting Dashboard for Tracking Cutover Progress

5.3 Reporting Cadence

The command center should follow a strict reporting cadence both for upward (i.e., reporting to leadership) and downward (i.e., reporting to business and application teams) communications. In a recent divestiture deal, a Fortune 500 company set up three global command centers in three different regions and had shift handoff calls (e.g., AMS hosts handoff call at the end of its shift and gives an update to APJ, the next region on duty). Apart from these calls, executive calls took place on a weekly or biweekly, depending on the criticality level of the task. Figure 25.8 depicts the call cadence for level 1 tasks (i.e., DEFCON ONE) that are at the highest level of criticality. The meeting cadence should be simplified with fewer checkpoint calls once the activity level drops to criticality level 2 or below.

Fig. 25.8

Sample Command Center Criticality Level and Staffing Model

6 Conclusion

The command center plays a critical role in minimizing operational risks and increasing business continuity during the final stages of executing a separation or divestiture. For the command center to be successful, it should be able to integrate people, processes, and tools to drive a proactive response to risks and issues. What separates a mediocre command center from a successful command center is the ability to proactively assess risks, understand issues, and leverage appropriate responses to resolve the issues. Organizations that implement successful command centers can avoid pitfalls like an emergency shutdown and help minimize disruption to the business on Day 1.

Case Study: 25

Background

A US-based global technology company agrees to enter a joint venture and sell a majority stake in its China server, storage, and services business to a China-owned company to create a new entity valued at ~$4.0B. Key drivers include the ability to more effectively penetrate the local market and align with buyer’s core business strength. Objectives include successful separation of three in-scope business units from seller’s portfolio, no disruption to other local Chinese’s business managed by seller and no disruption to seller’s own in-flight separation activities.

In order to facilitate a smooth Day 1 cutover, an integrated central Separation Management Office (SMO) was established to drive cutover planning and Day 1 orchestration. Overall scope of IT planning included transition of ~8000 employees, 143 applications and related infrastructure, facilities moves, and transfer of end-user compute (EUC) capabilities.

Challenges

Key challenges were centered on two primary areas:

• 1. IT separation and business planning on an aggressive timeline with significant regulatory compliance requirements including alignment with Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) .

• 2. Setting up a global IT command center straddling multiple time zones to coordinate activities with both the seller organization (US based) and buyer organization (China based) with stakeholders from business and IT.

Approach

A global “follow-the-sun” command center was stood up to drive a multi-cutover Day 1 plan across 13 workstreams including go-to-market, sales, finance, HR, supply chain, IT, legal, compliance, and other essential business functions.

Fig. 25.9

Representative Daily Schedule: Exhibit 1

• Multiple Cutovers: Due to aggressive timelines and complexity in the expected future-state business processes, a two pronged cutover was established with an early “operational cutover” phase to pressure test the joint seller/buyer business processes and ensure business continuity and an official “legal close” cutover for full separation. A robust set of accelerators were leveraged to assist with planning the operational cutover where both IT systems and data between business teams would mimic post-Day 1 operating model.

Investment in detailed task level cutover planning, capture of contingency plans, and application checklist reviews with a robust cross-functional governance model helped address proper cutover readiness.

• Global Command Center: Due to the global nature of the divestiture, a 24/7 cross-functional command center was set up with sunrise and sunset calls (held in Beijing, CN, local time) to manage cutover activity, incident management, and daily leadership reporting. Multiple war rooms (including a war room for IT) were used to manage function-specific activities with a strong governance model to manage cross collaboration and appropriate escalation to the command center.

Function-specific cutover tasks were managed locally by functional teams, and incidents were addressed by the respective functional war rooms. Necessary high or critical severity incidents and issues would be discussed on AM (sunrise)/PM (sunset) calls and subsequently escalated to the command center by email. Primary communication models included hosted command center calls and 24/7 dial-in conference bridges to report and escalate identified incidents. Minimal blackout periods were used with the exception of finance and HR to support data conversion and validation exercises.

Detailed staffing models, incident logs, status reports, and escalation/process flows were leveraged to maintain consistency across the large distributed ~150 person cutover team.

Fig. 25.10

Command Center and War Room Structure and Incident Management: Exhibit 2

Impact/Results

Based on the approach used, legal cutover resulted in minimal to zero impact to business operations with all major issues and incidents identified and rectified during the operational cutover phase. Regulatory requirements were fully satisfied, and effective communications kept buyer and seller informed.

Command center rigor and follow-the-sun model enabled achievement of aggressive timeline and flawless Day 1.