Day 1 Integration Management Office (IMO) M&A Plan

Covers all IMO activities leading up to and including close and Day 1/Week 1. Accompanying reports — Day 1 Checklist, RAID Log, Milestones, and Executive Dashboard — reflect progress as of T-0 (close day). The full plan is at 100-Day  IMO Post-Merger Integration Plan.

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Day 1 Integration Management Office M&A Plan
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This is a list of 10 of the more important IMO tasks in this plan to prepare for and execute on Day 1:

  1. Consolidate all workstream Day 1 readiness checklists — pull every team's checklist into one master view and confirm each critical task has a named owner.
  2. Stand up the Day 1 IMO war room — staffing, communication channels, escalation contacts, and an incident log, ready before the deal closes.
  3. Run Day 1 communications dry runs — test every announcement channel and verify the distribution lists for the press release, employee announcement, and customer communications.
  4. Confirm the communication guides reached every manager — verify both the employee and customer guides are in the hands of people leaders and sales managers before Day 1.
  5. Clear the IMO Day 1 Readiness Gate — the formal go/no-go checkpoint confirming all readiness tasks are done, systems tested, and no unresolved blockers remain.
  6. Activate the war room and run the 7 AM all-workstream stand-up — confirm go-status across every team at the start of Day 1.
  7. Monitor Day 1 task completion hourly — track progress across all workstreams and escalate any blocked items in real time.
  8. Hold the Day 1 end-of-day debrief — capture immediate issues with all workstream leads, feeding early input into the Day 30 gate assessment.
  9. Run the Week 1 daily stand-ups — a 15-minute RAG-status-and-blockers-only check-in with all workstream leads, Monday through Friday.
  10. Resolve all Day 1 open issues, update the RAID log, and publish the Week 1 status report — close out blockers, confirm every open item has an owner, and report task completion, milestone status, and the RAID summary.

These activities capture the IMO's distinct role on Day 1: it isn't executing any one function's tasks — it's making sure all workstreams launch on time, surface and solve problems quickly, and turn what could be a first chaotic day into a controlled, coordinated process.