The launch checklist: before, during and after, across every discipline

The launch checklist collects the checks that every discipline must pass before, during and after a product, service or campaign launch. It is deliberately cross-functional: marketing, legal, operations, service and the agencies tick the same list, because launches rarely fail inside one team. They fail where one team assumed another had done something.

The checklist gathers several bodies of guidance. On why launches fail, Joan Schneider and Julie Hall, writing in the Harvard Business Review in April 2011, described five recurring causes of flops, among them a company that cannot handle fast growth and a product that falls short of its claims¹; McKinsey has published guidance on making a launch drive growth². On claims, the US Federal Trade Commission treats an advertiser that lacks a "reasonable basis" for an objective claim before it runs as acting unfairly and deceptively³; in the UK the Advertising Standards Authority enforces the advertising codes written by the Committee of Advertising Practice⁴; and the International Chamber of Commerce's Advertising and Marketing Communications Code, whose 11th edition was published in September 2024, covers advertising, digital marketing and sales promotion internationally⁵.

On access and data: the W3C published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 as a Recommendation in October 2023⁶, and in the European Union the General Data Protection Regulation sets the lawful bases for processing personal data and gives people the right to object to direct marketing⁷. On measurement, AMEC's planning guidance asks for the evaluation plan before launch⁸.

1. Name the launch, the date and the owner at the top.
2. Assign each line to the team that will tick it.
3. Tick only with evidence a link to the brief, the legal sign-off, the test report.
4. Hold a go or no-go meeting a few days before launch; anything unticked is a decision, not an oversight.
5. Keep the during and after sections on the launch-day agenda and in the calendar.

Illustrative: the fictional Ourika Roasters' subscription launch.

Two weeks out, the checklist shows two gaps: the courier contract does not guarantee delivery days in one emirate, and the welcome email has not been tested in Arabic. The team narrows the delivery promise in that area, fixes the email, and records a go decision. On launch day, the service inbox and social comments are watched hourly; after eight weeks the review compares subscribers and churn with the baselines and switches on the sustain plan.

• Treating launch as the finish line Plan what happens in week two.
• Promising what operations cannot deliver Demand you cannot serve becomes complaints¹.
• Claims cleared in one market only Each market's rules apply^4, 5.
• Lists without a lawful basis Check consent before the launch email, not after⁷.
• Inaccessible launch pages Captions, contrast and alternative text are part of readiness⁶.

• Schneider and Hall on why launches fail¹; McKinsey on launches that drive growth².
• The FTC on substantiation³; the ASA and CAP⁴; the ICC Code⁵.
• WCAG 2.2⁶; the GDPR⁷; AMEC on planning evaluation⁸.
• On IMC Report: planning frameworks.