Who do we call for the IT side of an office move?

An office move is one of the few IT projects with a hard, immovable date, which is exactly why it goes wrong. Our rough timeline:

• Eight weeks out: order the internet circuit at the new address. This is the only step you genuinely cannot compress.
• Four weeks out: cabling and any electrical work, survey the new space, plan where equipment lives.
• Two weeks out: firewall, switching, and wireless installed and tested at the new site while the old one is still running.
• Move weekend: servers and workstations relocated, everything tested before Monday.
• First morning: somebody onsite, because there are always two or three surprises.

Two things that catch people out: phone number porting takes longer than anyone expects and should start early, and your alarm, credit card terminals, and any medical or industrial equipment usually need separate arrangements that nobody remembers until the week of.

Tell your current provider and your landlord your dates early. Cancelling a circuit is easy, un-cancelling one is not.