Switching technology providers is one of the most underestimated processes in a company. These are the points that almost always create problems.
There comes a point in many companies where the tool or technology provider they chose no longer performs. The system is slow, support is unresponsive, the price has gone up, or simply the needs have changed.
The decision to migrate seems straightforward. The execution almost never is.
Why migrations are complicated
The main problem is that systems accumulate dependencies over time: other systems that consume data from it, manual processes built around its limitations, informal integrations that no one documented.
When the time to migrate arrives, those dependencies appear one by one, usually at the worst possible moment.
The most common mistakes
Not making a dependency inventory before starting. The first step in any migration should be a map of everything that uses that system: what sends data to it, what consumes its data, what processes depend on it.
Migrating without a coexistence period. Shutting down the old system the same day the new one goes live is the highest-risk scenario. A period where both run in parallel allows you to validate that nothing is broken.
Not having a rollback plan. If something goes wrong, how do you return to the previous state? If there is no clear answer to that question, the migration is not ready to execute.
Underestimating team training. A new system, no matter how much better it is, requires the people who use it to know how. The learning curve has a cost that is almost always ignored in planning.
When to bring in outside help
It makes sense to involve someone external when the migration affects critical systems, when the internal team has no experience with that type of process, or when the cost of an interruption is high.
A couple of weeks of solid planning can prevent months of problems.
