Launching or integrating a new service or project can be challenging. I've been in situations where I overlooked something important halfway through. To avoid that, I created this checklist of questions to reference whenever needed.
It covers essential areas like ownership, infrastructure, security, compliance, and scalability, helping to assess risks, operational impact, and costs. By answering these questions, you gain a clearer understanding of dependencies, performance, and long-term maintainability.
Contact Persons and Project Responsibility
- Who are the primary internal contacts for the project within our company, clients, and partners/suppliers?
- How will communication be managed with these contacts (e.g., regular meetings, emails, project management tools)?
- What is the priority of this project compared to ongoing activities or other parallel projects?
- Who will be the point of contact for the project after implementation, and who will actively participate in the implementation phase?
Service Interface
- Who is responsible for each component of the project/operation (e.g., development, deployment, support)?
- What communication channels will be used for service requests, change requests, and support (e.g., email, ticketing system)?
- How frequently are service requests or change requests expected?
- What are the agreed-upon SLAs for:
- Response times to requests?
- Processing times for requests?
- Resolution times for requests?
- Is there an on-call service agreement in place with our clients and partners? If yes, what are the terms?
- Do our clients and partners also provide on-call service, and if so, what are the terms?
Infrastructure
- On which platforms will the service components operate (e.g., Cloud, VMware, OpenStack, Kubernetes, bare metal, on-premises)?
- Are there any external systems we depend on (e.g., VPN, third-party APIs, external databases)? If so, what are they?
- Do we need to distribute components across multiple availability zones to ensure availability through redundnacy?
- How will communication be handled between different platforms and systems in a mixed environment (e.g., cloud/on-premises, different cloud providers)?
- Are there any single points of failure (SPOFs) in the infrastructure that need to be addressed?
Installation, Commissioning, and Onboarding
- What is the detailed commissioning process for the project or service?
- Who is responsible for carrying out the installation: a partner, the client, or our internal teams?
- Can the installation be automated, and thus, repeated easily across environments? Is this process documented?
- Does the installation depend on any external systems or tools (e.g., licensing servers, external configurations)?
- Are there licensing requirements (e.g., license keys, product activation)?
- What is the data migration process for transferring existing data to the new service, and how will this be managed during on-boarding?
Dependencies
- What dependencies exist within internal teams (e.g., development, operations, security) and external partners/systems?
- What are the potential consequences if these dependencies are unavailable (e.g., service downtime, delayed timelines)?
- Are there clear processes for managing these dependencies and handling disruptions?
- Can the requirements in this document be answered for each identified dependency, including their availability and SLAs?
Data
- How will data be accessed and interacted with in the new service (e.g., via API, direct database access)?
- Where will the data be stored (e.g., on-premises storage, cloud storage, hybrid storage)?
- What type of storage will be used (e.g., SSDs for speed, HDDs for cost, object storage for scalability)?
Data Protection
- Does the service comply with data protection regulations such as GDPR or local laws? Are we adhering to all applicable privacy laws?
- Are any personal data or sensitive information being stored or processed (e.g., customer names, financial data)?
- Can the data collection be minimized by adjusting log levels or anonymizing data?
- Is encryption implemented for data in transit (e.g., TLS/SSL) and data at rest (e.g., encrypted databases)?
- How is sensitive data stored securely, and is it encrypted as required by legal and regulatory standards?
Backup & Restore
- What specific data needs to be backed up (e.g., user data, system configurations, databases)?
- How often should backups occur (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly), and what is the retention policy for backups?
- Who will be responsible for managing and executing the backups?
- How will backup integrity be verified (e.g., checksum validation, periodic testing)?
- What happens if a backup is lost or corrupted, and how will this be mitigated?
- Who will have access to backups, and are there privacy and compliance concerns regarding backup access?
- What is the procedure for restoring backups in case of data loss or system failure?
Disaster Recovery
- In the event of a disaster, which components must be restored first (e.g., production systems before development)?
- Who needs to be informed during a disaster recovery event, and how will they be notified?
- What immediate actions must be taken following a failure (e.g., failover, rollback, emergency meetings)?
- What is the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) for the critical systems and services, i.e., how long can they be down before business operations are impacted?
- What is the Recovery Point Objective (RPO), i.e., how much data loss is acceptable during a failure?
- How often will we test disaster recovery procedures to ensure they work as expected?
Monitoring
- What monitoring endpoints are available for the service (e.g., health checks, performance metrics)?
- Who is responsible for monitoring the service components, and how will monitoring responsibilities be distributed?
- How will incidents be triggered and who will be notified (e.g., on-call staff, support teams)?
- Will the monitoring notifications depend on business hours, or will they be continuous (e.g., 24/7)?
- What are the most important business processes or KPIs that need to be monitored to ensure service performance?
- Are there any critical components (e.g., custom services) that require special monitoring beyond standard health checks?
Updates, Maintainability, and Maintenance Agreement
- How often will the software and services receive updates (e.g., weekly, monthly, as needed)?
- What is the expected timeline for installing updates, and who will manage them?
- What maintenance windows need to be agreed upon with clients, partners, and internal teams?
- Are there specific internal or partner teams required to support regular maintenance?
- What recurring maintenance tasks need to be automated (e.g., certificate renewals, scaling)?
- Can updates or upgrades be performed automatically ("unattended") without manual intervention?
Availability
- What are the service availability requirements (How many nines, 99.9%, 99.99%, 99,999%)?
- Is availability required at all times, or only during specific periods (e.g., business hours)?
- Can the service be deployed in a cluster for high availability or load balancing?
- What failover mechanisms are in place, and how are they tested (e.g., active/passive, automatic failover)?
Non-Standard Software and Software Support
- What are the core technologies or software components that the service depends on (e.g., operating systems, databases, libraries)?
- Are these technologies standard or proprietary, and are there known risks (e.g., limited support, outdated)?
- Is there available support for these software components, and if not, what expertise is required to maintain them internally?
Personnel & Training
- Is training required for employees involved in operation, installation, or administration of the service?
- Which specific employees or teams will need to receive training?
- Does the project require additional personnel or outsourcing to meet staffing requirements?
Licensing
- What type of licensing model is used for the service (e.g., subscription, perpetual, per-user)?
- Are there any obligations arising from the licensing model (e.g., open-source licensing, commercial licensing)?
- Are any licenses required for components, and what are the associated recurring or one-time costs?
- Are license upgrades or feature expansions expected, and could they impact costs or operations?
Scaling
- What growth is expected for the service in terms of user base, data, or traffic?
- How will scaling be achieved (e.g., horizontally, vertically)?
- What are the strategies for scaling down or releasing resources during off-peak times?
- Are there any known bottlenecks (e.g., database, network, compute) that might limit scalability?
- What are the cost implications of scaling (e.g., per-user, per-transaction, per-GB)?
- How will performance be monitored to detect scaling issues?
- What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) to track scalability (e.g., response time, throughput, latency)?
- How will load balancing be managed as the service scales?
- Will the scaling process be automated, and if so, how?
- What is the strategy for database scaling (e.g., sharding, replication)?
- How will data consistency be maintained during scaling (e.g., eventual consistency vs. strong consistency)?
- What is the approach for handling sudden traffic spikes (e.g., auto-scaling, traffic prioritization)?
- Are there regional considerations for scaling, such as data residency or latency concerns?
- What are the failover strategies in case of scaling issues or system failures?
Compliance
- What legal, regulatory, or industry standards must the service comply with (e.g., HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOC 2)?
- Will the service be subject to audits? If so, what is the expected frequency and scope of these audits?
- What level of effort is required from the internal team to prepare for these audits?
- Does the service meet internal security standards (e.g., vulnerability management, patching)?
Documentation
- Is there existing project or product documentation (e.g., requirements, design)?
- Who is responsible for creating or maintaining the operational manual?
- Is there a known issues log or troubleshooting guide available for the service?
- Is there an architecture diagram or documentation to clarify the service’s infrastructure and components?
- What additional documentation is available (e.g., user guides, tutorials, FAQs)?
Additional Considerations
- Are performance benchmarks (e.g., latency, throughput, uptime) defined, and are they being met?
- What is the process for managing changes to the service, including versioning, upgrades, and impact analysis?
- How will changes to the service affect users or clients, and how will these changes be communicated?
- Does the service/project have an exit strategy , including data portability and service decommissioning?
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