A review process should be set up for each deal. A fresh pair of eyes will always have a better chance of spotting the gaps. This process will be particularly useful if the deal manager has people on the project that have not completed many deals before end to end or where resource on the project might be considered tight, often things fall through the gaps, and a holistic review is useful.
The overarching review is also useful if there is a possibility of high interdependencies or poor communication due to project people being of different background, experience, levels, based in different divisions, countries, locations.
We all know that a review process is a great idea, even if we have a formal structure, governance and tracking process. The real questions are: How many review “hot spots” should we have give the size and complexity of a deal and what should they include?
Deals should be reviewed well in advance of due diligence, along side the Due Diligence process, just before the deal and then just after as we suddenly know a lot more information, then every two months for the next 2-3 years . Before each stage of the deal a review should take place to feed good information into that decision to move on. If we are looking closely around the deal date (before and after) fuller reviews, looking at each function for 2-5 days should take place
For small deals an extra pair of expert eyes to help spot issues and then potentially support gaps. We often find these reviews are a great way to help people who could use extra M&A and PMI knowledge. We can provide coaching support