Stress-test a vendor exit before the notice letter proves the data return path is vague, the replacement is soft, or the contract traps were unread.
Vendor exits fail when termination windows are misread, when data export depends on the vendor's goodwill, when replacement capacity is dual-counted with the old tool, and when customers or regulators still see the old logo in flows you forgot. A clean "we are leaving" memo is not evidence that the company can operate on day one without the vendor.
What to put on the table
One sentence for why you exit, the notice date you will honor, who owns data return and cutover, and the rollback trigger if the replacement cannot meet the window. Attach the contract excerpts that matter, the last export test notes, the dependency map, and the customer or partner language you would use. If legal, security, and ops disagree on what "done" means, stop and reconcile first.
Name the decision you will make if the stress test finds nothing new, and the delay criteria if a critical export or replacement path is untested.
Attack surfaces
- Contract traps: auto-renew, data fees, non-solicit, or survival clauses you skimmed.
- Untested exports: schemas that look complete and fail under time pressure.
- Replacement gaps: capacity, integrations, or support that still assume the old vendor.
- Comms gaps: customers, partners, or staff who learn from silence or a broken redirect.
- Domain overlap: exit work that shares fate with a launch or freeze you already booked.
Optional finance seat if prepaid terms, credits, or write-downs are part of the story. Optional security seat if credentials, logs, or subprocessors must be revoked on a dated checklist.
How to run it
Feed Pingpong the exit memo, contract excerpts, and dependency map. Early passes steelman the plan. Later passes attack from legal, security, ops, and customer seats. End with a pass that turns surviving objections into a clearer cutover order, a named owner, or a hold. Delete invented "we can rebuild" timelines and dual-counted replacement capacity.
When the exit changes identity providers, billing, or data residency, force security and finance seats to map every path that still assumes the old vendor. Contracts, runbooks, and status templates count. A vendor exit that looks clean in a deck while on-call still pages the old vendor will fail on the first bad Tuesday.
Force a day-after narrative: what happens if the export stalls, if the replacement slips a week, or if two teams keep writing to the old system. If those stories are stronger than your mitigation plan, fix the package before you send notice. Related: war-game a vendor selection, stress-test a migration plan, stress-test a backup plan, pretend you are the ops lead, and the war-game decisions hub. Process: how to run a Pingpong.