closing-planlisted

# Closing Plan ## Purpose Turn a "we want to move forward" into a dated, owned, gate-by-gate plan that gets the contract signed by a real date — surfacing procurement, legal, and security blockers early instead of in the final week. ## Inputs - The target close date (the buyer's, not your forecast wish) - The deal's current stage and what still has to happen to advance - Open commitments on both sides and who owns them - Known stakeholders, especially economic buyer, procurement, legal, and security - The buyer's actual signing process (who signs, in what order, on what paper) ## Method 1. **Map steps-to-signature, backward from the date.** Start at "contract signed" and work back. Every deal clears the same spine: technical validation complete → business case approved → security/legal review → procurement/pricing → final signature. List the real steps for *this* deal in order, not a generic funnel. 2. **Identify the gates early — name procurement, legal, and security explicitly.** These are the schedule killers. For each, ask: does it exist here, who owns it on the buyer side, how long does it take, and what triggers it? Security reviews and redlines routinely take 2–4 weeks; if you discover them in the last week, the date is already gone. 3. **Time-box every ask with a date.** Each step gets `owner + action + by-date`. Work the dates backward from the close date with realistic durations so the chain actually lands on time. A step without a date