An office move plan is a task list with dates and owners, and it fails in one of two ways: it is written too late, or it is written as a single list so long that nobody can see what is due. Phasing fixes both. This page sets out the five phases a move actually has, what belongs in each, and the small number of items that are consistently discovered too late because they belong to a phase earlier than instinct suggests. It is written for the person running the move rather than for whoever is doing the lifting.
The two phases that happen before anything visible
Phase one is the decision and the constraints: the notice on the current lease, the date it must be out by, the budget, and the headcount to be housed. Almost every avoidable problem in a move comes from missing the notice date on the outgoing lease, which sits in phase one and is invisible in every later phase. Phase two is the survey: what exists, what moves, what is disposed of, what is replaced. Do this as an inventory rather than an impression, because the volume of what you own is the input to every quote you will ask for.
The middle phase, which is mostly other people
Phase three is commitments: the contractors, the new lease, and every supplier who has to be told or transferred. Internet and telephony have the longest lead times of anything in a move and belong at the very start of this phase rather than in the fortnight before. So does anything requiring a landlord's consent. Keep this phase as a list of external dependencies with dates and named contacts, because it is the one where the delay is somebody else's and the consequence is yours.
The two phases everybody plans, and the one item to add
Phase four is the move itself, which is the part people start with and the easiest to plan. Phase five is the first week in the new building: the snags, the things that do not work, the deliveries still going to the old address. Add one item to phase five that is usually missing: the mail redirection and the address change on every record, from the bank to the business registers to the invoice template. It is dull, it is nobody's obvious job, and its absence produces problems for months.
Questions people ask about office move plan
How far ahead should the plan start?
From the notice date on the outgoing lease, working backwards, which for many leases means starting much earlier than the move itself would suggest. The notice date is a hard external deadline you cannot negotiate afterwards, and every other date hangs off it.
Who should own the plan?
One person, with named owners per task. Moves run by committee produce tasks that everybody assumes somebody else has. The owner does not have to do the tasks; they have to know the state of every one, which is why the plan needs statuses rather than just ticks.
What should we do with the paper archive?
Decide before the move, not during, because moving paper is expensive and the move is the natural moment to stop carrying it. The free worksheet on this site costs what the cabinets take in floor space and staff time, which is usually the argument that settles it.