Going live in the middle of a fiscal year

Here the pros and cons are just the opposite of those in the case we discussed earlier.

The main advantage is that the starting date can be moved. Don't get us wrong; it does not mean that you can play with the date with no consequences. Your customer will always ask you to be committed with a date. But in case of some change within the iron triangle, you will always have the chance to negotiate a change on the time side to balance the triangle.

It is better to go live a few days late with guarantees than do it on time if some new feature hasn't been implemented or tested yet.

Choose a date, bearing in mind what your customer's busiest time of the year is and try to avoid it. As we mentioned earlier, the month before the go-live date is a pretty busy month. Actually, the month after it is also a very busy one.

The main con is that, in some cases, the company won't have complete information, on an annual basis, during the...