If you are reading this, you are at least considering joining the majority of Fortune 500 companies in migrating to the #Cloud (#AWS or #M365). Whether you are at the beginning of this process or already well underway, as professionals who have assisted many corporations in their transitions, we would like to share some of our insights to help ease your journey.
1. Inventory: Ensure Everything is Accounted For
Just like any project, before you start, you need to make sure you assess your current inventory and have a good grasp of the entire scope of your migration project. During every migration, this is what our team at Bayen Group focuses on:
- Application Audit: Making sure to capture all the applications that will affect your migration effort.
- Compatibility Check: Check the compatibility of your existing hardware and software with Office 365.
- Workflows Mapping: Analyze current workflows to ensure they can be replicated or improved in the new environment.
- Data Size and Types: Determine the volume and types of data to be migrated, including emails, files, and databases. Not everything needs to be migrated.
2. Plan: Develop a Detailed Migration Plan
To ensure a smooth transition with the fewest disruptions as possible, you must develop a detailed migration plan. Most organizations typically don’t spend enough time to plan and end up paying for it during the project. By building in the appropriate time to plan, you end up saving a lot of time during the execution. Here are some key components Bayen Group puts into consideration:
- Scheduling: Create a realistic timeline with milestones and deadlines.
- Phased/Milestone Approach: Consider a phased approach to lessen the impact on daily operations.
- Responsibilities Matrix: Put together a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consultant, and Informed) Matrix to ensure that all roles and responsibilities of all team members involved in migration are defined.
- Backup and Recovery: Before you start, put together a backup and recovery plan to prevent data loss during the migration or false start.
- Testing/Validation: Testing, testing, and then some more testing. Make sure you have a good test case or checklist to ensure that everything has been migrated successfully.
3. Communicate: Prepare for User Adoption and Training
When it comes to Cloud migration, most of the attention is spent on the technical side of the house. From our experience, a successful migration usually ends with the user side of the house. As users, their ability to adjust to the new world can make or break a migration effort. So, we always tell our clients to ensure that there is a good change management/communication plan in place to ensure smooth user adoption. To facilitate this, here are a few things Bayen Group always emphasizes:
- Communication: There is no such thing as over-communicating. If you are moving their data, you need to communicate before, during, and after.
- Training: You must develop comprehensive training programs to help users from all different behaviors to ensure they are familiar with the new tools and features that you plan to implement.
- Support: Be sure to provide the appropriate after-go-live communication along with providing a clear line of communication for those who need help.
4. Migration Tool and/or Consultants: Save Time and Reduce Risks
By far, this is the best tip that we can give you. We understand that some of the migration tools out there can be pricey. But from our experience, these tools will help you save a lot of money and headaches when it comes to planning, migrating, and monitoring your project. Before you start your project, we truly recommend you work with a consulting team like Bayen Group that understands the unique aspects of a Cloud migration, or at the very least, a migration tool.
Conclusion
Migration to the Cloud can be a very long road, but with appropriate planning, communication, and tools, your odds of success are very high. The 4 tips we outlined come from our experience in providing migration services to our partners. We have extensive experience migrating clients large and small to the Cloud, and we are here to help you with your journey.
About the Author
My name is Huy Nguyen, and I am a managing partner at Bayen Group . We specialize in partnering with organizations to plan and implement the Technology Enterprise Modernization Roadmap. If your organization is starting or in the process of your own Digital Transformation, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to be your guide through the Digital Transformation journey.
