Deployment Readiness Gate
What This Requires
Require formal deployment readiness review before AI system goes live: architecture sign-off, security review completion, performance validation, runbook documentation, and executive approval for high-risk systems.
Why It Matters
Premature deployment of untested or insecure AI systems causes outages, data breaches, and reputational damage. A gate ensures all prerequisite work is complete.
How To Implement
Define Readiness Criteria
Checklist: (1) threat model complete, (2) security tests pass, (3) performance meets SLA, (4) runbook published, (5) monitoring configured, (6) rollback plan tested, (7) stakeholder sign-off.
Review Meeting
Convene readiness review meeting 1 week before launch. Attendees: product, engineering, security, ops. Review checklist item-by-item. No launch until all items green.
Approval Authority
Define approvers by risk tier: low (engineering manager), medium (director), high (VP/exec). Document approval in ticket (Jira, ServiceNow).
Post-Deployment Validation
After launch, validate system health (metrics, logs, alerts). Conduct retrospective within 1 week to capture lessons.
Evidence & Audit
- Deployment readiness checklist template
- Completed checklists for recent deployments
- Review meeting notes with attendee list and decisions
- Approval records tied to deployments
- Post-deployment validation reports