The IT department is often called upon to coordinate an internal department move, help relocate a remote office, or be involved in an entire company move. If you’re lucky, the company will hire an external project manager that coordinates office relocation projects for a living.

But even if you do have an external project management company leading the move, the IT department still won’t be able to relinquish certain responsibilities required in a successful office relocation.

New network configurations are required, WAN circuits may have to be coordinated, new PCs and printers may have to be purchased, configured, and installed, new phone connections set up, and so on. Any way you look at it, there will be a lot for the IT organization to worry about. To help you organize all your office relocations, download this extensive office move checklist.

Start with a base plan
Every office move will be unique, with different issues and challenges. If you’re in a large company that encounters office relocations often, it’s a good idea to have a standard office move checklist that you can pull out and customize for every new project. Having a base plan to start with will save you time and can improve everyone’s productivity. As a manager, working from a common plan also makes it much easier to inspect the status of every move.

There are several items consistent with almost every move, including the following:

  • Office and cube locations
  • Definition of required outlets in every employee location
  • Ordering new equipment
  • Configuring and installing new equipment
  • Packing equipment that will be relocated
  • Moving the equipment that is to be relocated
  • Configuring central network and phone technologies
  • Installing and configuring the relocated equipment
  • Testing connectivity
  • Developing and coordinating user startup directions in the new location

This office move checklist covers all of these issues, and more. Of course, there will be other issues that you must cover that are not included in this checklist, such as security, but this checklist will give you a quick start in developing your own office move plan.

Mike Sisco is the CEO of MDE Enterprises, an IT manager training and consulting company. For more of Mike’s management insight, take a look at his IT Manager Development Series.