Why Go-Live Wasn’t the Measure of Success
Jason Jenne, CFO, Certor Sports
Why Go-Live Wasn’t the Measure of Success
How Certor’s CFO used executive clarity to protect customers, the team, and revenue during busy season.
Jason Jenne stepped into the CFO seat at Certor Sports and inherited a NetSuite implementation already in motion. The project had failed to go live twice, but the organization was still being moved toward another attempt. On paper, the project had momentum. What Jason did not yet have was a reliable way to know whether that momentum meant progress.
He needed to understand where the project actually stood — what was blocking go-live, how far the team was from readiness, whether the project was viable, and what it would take to launch successfully. With busy season approaching, he also needed to understand what the business risked if it pushed forward too soon.
Yellow Bag was brought in through The Reset, a structured intervention for implementation projects that need visibility, risk clarity, and stronger executive decision-making.
Executive Snapshot
| The Client | Certor Sports (formerly Schutt Sports) |
| The Executive Hero | Jason Jenne, CFO |
| The Business Moment | New CFO inherited a NetSuite implementation that had already failed to go live twice and was approaching a third attempt |
| The Core Problem | Leadership lacked clear visibility into project viability, readiness, blockers, and what it would take to go live successfully |
| The Core Risk | A third go-live attempt during busy season could compromise the customer experience, strain the team, and put revenue at risk |
| The Yellow Bag Role | Project Reset lead and execution partner across leadership, management, and project teams — providing advisory, planning, solution validation, documentation, UAT support, training support, cutover support, and hands-on project management |
| The Leadership Decision | Postpone go-live to a more defensible date |
| The Business Outcome | Protected customers, protected the team, protected revenue, reduced implementation risk, and gave the CFO executive clarity |
| The Strategic Lesson | Go-live is not success if the business is not ready to absorb the change |
The Situation
Jason Jenne did not walk into Certor Sports on the first day of a new implementation. He walked into the middle of one that had already failed twice.
The project had been underway for more than a year and a half. NetSuite had been the right decision — Jason did not question that. What he questioned was whether the project was positioned to succeed on its next attempt.
The prior failures had a root cause Jason identified quickly. It was not the software. It was not NetSuite professional services. It was the absence of internal project structure — no centralized leadership to represent the business, orchestrate the team, and ensure the implementation was built around how Certor actually operated. Without that structure, progress was difficult to sustain, readiness was difficult to assess, and the business had no reliable way to know whether another go-live attempt would hold.
When a third date was proposed — 90 days out — Jason did not accept it.
| “NetSuite professional services was ready to set a new go-live date in 90 days, and I said we got to tap the brakes and we have to bring in someone into our company that can represent us and understand us.”— Jason Jenne, CFO |
That was not a decision to delay. It was a decision to get the conditions right before making a commitment the business could not yet defend.
Jason was not questioning the value of the NetSuite decision. He was questioning whether the project had the structure, business understanding, and readiness required to make a third go-live attempt successful. Before leadership could decide whether to proceed, pause, or reset, Jason needed to understand what had been missed, what was still required, where the business was exposed, and whether the proposed timeline could be defended.
That is why Yellow Bag was brought in.
Why the Business Was Hard to Implement
Certor’s implementation was not a straightforward system replacement. The business carries the complexity of deep customization, compressed seasonality, precision manufacturing, and high customer expectations that cannot be paused at go-live time.
David Price, COO of Schutt Sports, described the operating reality:
| “When we are in season, over 80% of the helmets we make are very unique to an individual customer. The other unique part is seasonality. Our season is very short, from May 1st to September 1st. That creates specific problems with creating bills of materials, inventory planning, and forecasting.”— David Price, COO, Schutt Sports |
For leadership, this meant go-live could not be evaluated as a technical milestone alone. A successful implementation required a partner who understood Certor’s operating reality deeply enough to help leadership make the right decision — not just implement a system. Standard implementation support was not sufficient for a business where customer commitments, manufacturing readiness, inventory planning, and seasonal execution were tightly connected.
What Yellow Bag Carried
Yellow Bag’s role expanded because the project required more than advice. Certor needed a partner who could support leadership decisions, guide management through uncertainty, create project structure, validate solutions, fill execution gaps, prepare the team for UAT, support training, document the project, and keep the implementation moving across every level of the organization.
| Area of Support | What Yellow Bag Provided |
|---|---|
| Leadership Advisory | Supported executive decision-making, risk visibility, and go-live readiness decisions |
| Management Support | Guidance and practical support for managers carrying the change |
| Project Leadership | Project planning, replanning, commitments, documentation, training, UAT, cutover, and cross-functional accountability |
| Solution Work | Evaluated third-party solutions, validated proposed solutions, and created solutions where gaps existed |
| Gap Filling | Filled the gaps between leadership, management, users, and implementation resources |
Four Decisions That Changed the Outcome
The Reset was not a single moment. It was the result of four leadership decisions, each of which required Jason to hold a higher standard than the default path.
DECISION POINT 1
Create Visibility Before Making the Call
The first reset was not about delay. It was about visibility.
Jason could not responsibly decide whether to proceed, pause, or reset until he understood the project’s true condition. The choice was between accepting inherited momentum as proof of progress, or stopping long enough to understand whether the timeline was real, the project was viable, and what it would actually take to go live. He chose to stop.
Yellow Bag brought structure where the project lacked it: an independent viability assessment, readiness visibility by area, risk identification, clarification of blockers, and a more reliable view of what was required to move forward. The value was not a status update. It was objective visibility that separated project motion from actual progress.
| “My visibility was much better because before I couldn’t put my finger on why we weren’t ready; you gave that objective practical life in terms of that tool.”— Jason Jenne, CFO |
Yellow Bag gave Jason an area-by-area view of readiness, showing which teams were prepared and which areas were not yet close to go-live. Jeremy Erspamer, CEO, described Yellow Bag’s value as the ability to frame where the project stood, what challenges remained, what had been accomplished, and which decision points leadership needed to evaluate — with the pros and cons of going in either direction.
For leaders facing a similar visibility gap, a go-live readiness assessment can help separate project motion from true readiness.
Why it took judgment: For a new CFO, challenging an inherited project already in motion is not the easy political move. The safer path would have been to keep the project moving and let the existing timeline stand. Jason chose accountability over inherited momentum.
DECISION POINT 2
Treat Team Readiness as Delivery Readiness
The team’s state was not a morale issue. It was a readiness signal.
The people closest to the work could sense that the implementation path did not yet reflect Certor’s business reality. They may not have had the language to diagnose the gap, but they knew the project was not ready to carry the business safely through go-live. Jason named what he saw clearly:
| “Short answer is uncomfortable and borderline scared.”— Jason Jenne, CFO |
The fear was not resistance to change. Jason identified its source precisely:
| “They couldn’t necessarily verbalize it, but the reason they were scared is because they could tell that the individuals that were responsible for getting them live didn’t know truly who they were and what their needs were.”— Jason Jenne, CFO |
A team that does not trust the implementation path is not a team that can carry a successful launch. That was not a staffing problem or a motivation problem. It was a structural signal that the project needed more than technical progress — it needed an internal leader who understood the business and could build confidence from the inside.
Jason’s decision was to take the team’s state as seriously as the system’s readiness. He recognized that the two were connected: if the team was pushed into an unstable launch during busy season, customers would feel the consequences.
The people impact of a failed implementation is often one of the clearest signals that a project needs to be reset.
Why it took judgment: Under schedule pressure, leaders are often encouraged to push through team fatigue and keep the project moving. Jason chose a stronger standard. He treated the team as central to delivery, not adjacent to it.
DECISION POINT 3
Measure Go-Live Against Customer and Team Impact
The go-live decision had to be measured against Certor’s customer-first operating standard.
Certor’s busy season runs May 1 through September 1. In that window, over 80% of production is custom to individual customers, demand compresses, and the team’s full capacity is required to execute. A system launch during that window would not split attention between two manageable priorities — it would divide the team between stabilizing a new system and serving customers during the highest-stakes period of the year.
Jason and the leadership team had clarity about what they were protecting:
| “One of the things we at Schutt overemphasize is protecting our customers.”— Jason Jenne, CFO |
Jeremy Erspamer, CEO, defined success as improving Certor’s capabilities with the least disruption to the business. David Price, COO, connected the implementation directly to stronger customer service, manufacturing efficiency, and business process performance. Together, their perspective made the standard clear: go-live had to be judged by its impact on customers and operations, not by the calendar alone.
Yellow Bag connected the project diagnostic to the business moment, helping leadership see the customer impact of the timing decision, not just the project milestone. The Reset changed the question — from “Can we go live?” to “Can we go live without failing the customer, the team, or the business?”
Customer impact should be part of every go-live decision, especially when the implementation touches order flow, manufacturing, fulfillment, or service delivery.
Why it took judgment: The conflict between “hit the date” and “protect the customer” is not always visible in a project plan. Jason had to name that conflict directly and choose the business over the appearance of progress.
DECISION POINT 4
Choose the Defensible Date Over the Default Date
The final decision was not made out of avoidance. It was made from information.
By the time Jason and the leadership team evaluated the timing, the business context had also shifted. Certor’s business had nearly doubled, bringing with it a new level of customer demand and operational load that made the stakes of a failed launch even higher.
| “The fundamental reason why it was so much easier to make that decision was because you had given us the information we needed to understand where we were in the project.”— Jason Jenne, CFO |
What that clarity produced was not hesitation. It produced confidence — confidence that postponing was the right decision, that the project could be restarted after busy season, and that the path forward was one the business could actually hold.
| “We had a confidence level that if we delayed the project, we were going to be able to turn it back on after our busy season.”— Jason Jenne, CFO |
Jason also distinguished this postponement from the earlier missed dates. This time, the delay was grounded in business protection, customer impact, and a clearer understanding of what the project still required — not calendar pressure or incomplete execution.
The decision protected the customer experience, protected the team from carrying an unstable launch, reduced implementation risk, and protected revenue during busy season. It was not delay. It was business protection.
Why it took judgment: A third delay can look like another failure from the outside. Choosing it for the right reasons — and being able to defend it — is hard leadership. Jason did not choose delay. He chose the business.
What It Produced
Certor gained more than time. Certor gained a better decision.
Jason used Yellow Bag’s assessment and a clearer risk framework to evaluate both sides: what the company risked by going live, and what it risked by waiting. The conclusion was clear. A third go-live attempt during busy season would have asked the team and the customer to carry risk the project had not earned the right to place on them. Postponing the launch protected the business, preserved focus during busy season, reduced the risk of customer disruption, and gave the project a more defensible path forward.
| Outcome | What It Meant for Certor |
|---|---|
| Executive Visibility | Leadership could finally see where the project stood, what remained, and where risk lived |
| Decision Confidence | Jason had the information needed to make and defend the decision |
| Business Protection | Certor avoided forcing a fragile launch into the highest-demand period of the year |
| Customer Protection | The company preserved capacity to serve customers when demand was highest |
| Revenue Protection | Protecting customer experience and operational capacity protected revenue during a critical season |
| Stronger Path Forward | The project moved toward a more defensible date and a stronger foundation |
Beyond the Decision: What Changed After The Reset
The postponement was one part of a larger shift. Before Yellow Bag joined, the project had been caught in a pattern it could not escape. David Price, COO, described what that felt like from the inside:
| “We had been trying to implement NetSuite for a long time now and it really felt like we were in a time loop. We would constantly have the same conversations over and over again with the NetSuite team, and when Yellow Bag came in, they managed to break us out of that time loop and let us make real progress.”— David Price, COO, Schutt Sports |
Yellow Bag also changed the quality of every implementation session. Agendas were required. Solutions were tested in the sandbox before sessions. Commitments were tracked on both sides, and leadership had a clearer timeline for decisions around resources and timing. That discipline created stability — even through team and leadership changes that would otherwise have disrupted momentum.
| “Yellow Bag was able to stabilize that and create an anchor that allowed us to keep making progress regardless of changes. After partnering with Yellow Bag, we made more progress in the first six months than we had the previous two years in the implementation process.”— David Price, COO, Schutt Sports |
| Outcome | What It Meant for Certor |
|---|---|
| Team Protection | Employees were not asked to absorb the cost of another unstable launch during a record season |
| Risk Reduction | The company avoided increasing the likelihood of a third failed go-live |
| Project Discipline | Yellow Bag brought structure, commitments, timelines, and accountability to the project |
| Stabilized Momentum | Yellow Bag created continuity even through team and leadership changes |
| Progress After Stagnation | More progress in six months than in the prior two years of the implementation |
What CFOs Can Learn
A go-live date is not success if the business is not ready to absorb the change.
For CFOs, the real measure is not whether an implementation hits the calendar. The real measure is whether the decision protects the customer, the team, revenue, and the long-term viability of the transformation.
- Project momentum is not the same as readiness.
- A project update is only useful if it helps leadership assess risk and impact.
- Team readiness is a delivery requirement, not a secondary concern.
- Customer experience must be part of the go-live decision.
- The risk of not going live should be assessed alongside the risk of going live.
Jason’s decision became defensible because he had a clearer view of where the project stood, what still had to be done, how the team felt, what the business was facing, and what customers could be asked to absorb.
That is the leadership value of The Reset: it creates the structure and visibility required to make the right decision before the business pays the cost of the wrong one.
Is Your Implementation Date Hiding More Risk Than Progress?
If your NetSuite implementation has stalled, missed a go-live, or is approaching a deadline that leadership cannot fully defend, Yellow Bag can help you understand where the project actually stands — and what it will take to move forward on the right terms.
For CFOs inheriting a stalled or unclear implementation, The Reset provides a way to understand what is real, what is risky, and what it will take to move forward.
Start by understanding whether your timeline is supported by readiness, risk clarity, and a path the business can defend.
| Assess Your Go-Live Readinessyellowbag.tech |
Also from Yellow Bag:
• The Reset Files Podcast — The People Impact (Bonus Episode)
• ERP Implementation Cost: Why the Cheapest Option Often Costs More
• Achieving NetSuite Implementation Success: Beyond Go-Live
• How CFOs Protect ERP Outcomes: A Strategic Oversight Guide
Yellow Bag is an Indianapolis-based strategic advisory firm specializing in NetSuite implementation advisory and finance transformation for mid-market, product-based companies. yellowbag.tech
