Blog
15/04/2025
Top 10 Tips For Successful Migrations & Transformation
Cloud Migrations and IT Transformations are considered the leading and most significant business changes that, whilst delivering substantial benefits to an organisation, can present a high level of corporate risk.
Synyega’s experts have highlighted their top ten tips for getting it right the first time and avoiding stalled or failed projects.
1. Preparation
The Pareto Principle suggests that 80% of outcomes often stem from 20% of the effort. In project planning, this means identifying and prioritizing the 20% of tasks that will drive the majority of results. By carefully planning those high-impact areas, teams can address most eventualities more efficiently, even before full execution begins.
For enterprises aiming to succeed in this fast-evolving environment, preparation goes beyond creating a roadmap; it involves cultivating a forward-thinking mindset that prioritises adaptability, resilience, and futureproofing.
As the adage goes: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
2. Stakeholder Engagement
Identify and engage all relevant stakeholders to ensure a comprehensive perspective of the project’s scope, facilitating alignment with the organisation's strategic goals and fostering a sense of ownership and collaboration. These stakeholders should be all the business area leaders that the project will affect (IT Procurement, ITAM, FinOps, Finance, etc.
3. Understanding Your Current IT Environment
Conduct a thorough assessment of your current IT environment to ensure all assets and processes are considered. This enables more precise planning and risk mitigation, allowing you to model how this will translate into the future environment.
4. Clear Vision of the Future State
Develop a detailed forecast of the target IT environment, as this will allow for better preparation and alignment of the transformation with business objectives. A well-defined view of the desired future state of the IT environment will ensure your organisation can anticipate the project's impact on risk profiles, costs, downtime, and user experiences. This clarity supports decision-making and strategic planning.
5. Strategy Alignment
It is crucial to ensure that the transformation aligns with the broader business objectives, facilitating cohesive operations and maximising the return on investment. This alignment between the transformation initiative and the organisation's strategy prevents siloed operations and missed opportunities.
6. Shift Left
The concept of “Shifting Left” originates from software development and testing, where earlier interventions reduce defects and improve efficiency. Applied to cloud and AI initiatives, it ensures organisations are better prepared for the complexity these technologies introduce.
Synyega recommends that the impact of software licensing on design, costs, and carbon be “shifted left” as early as possible in the lifecycle of a project. This should include working with architects and engineers to ensure designs enable cost (and carbon) -optimal usage of software, SaaS, and cloud services.
7. Expertise And Skills
The complexity of IT transformations necessitates specialised expertise. If you don’t have the required skills or experiences for a successful IT transformation in-house, an external expert partner can ensure that your organisation possesses the necessary capabilities to execute the transformation successfully. They can support the business long-term through knowledge transfer, training, and skills enablement to allow internal staff to manage the environment once the transformation is complete.
If a partner is required, including them in the planning phase will ensure the best chance of success – enabling them to share their experiences from the beginning and supporting your “shift left” approach.
A poorly selected partner or a partner brought into the project at a late stage may lack a clear understanding of the project's objectives, misalign with the organisation's core metrics, or possess insufficient expertise. This misalignment can lead to increased risks, higher costs, and suboptimal outcomes. Therefore, selecting a technically proficient partner that is aligned with the organisation's strategic vision and values is imperative.
Our guide to Selecting The Right Partner For ITAM, FinOps, AI, or GreenOps explores this area and offers further recommendations.
8. Robust Program Governance
Establish clear governance frameworks; this will ensure that the project remains on track, resources are appropriately allocated, and risks are managed proactively. These governance structures are essential to balance pace, tools, and methodologies during the transformation.
9. Comprehensive Budget Management
Budgets and forecasts must be comprehensive and flexible so that, with continuous monitoring, plans can be adjusted as required. This will maintain financial health throughout the transformation journey, avoiding overruns and resource constraints. Consider all the critical budget categories, not just the infrastructure costs.
10. Leveraging Data Insights
Leverage data insights, provided by an effective analysis function, to enable strategic agility throughout migration projects. Use these insights to anticipate market changes and forecast trends, improve and adjust the service – even as it is being built, and head off risks before they occur. All this will allow the project to remain on course for success.
IT migration and transformation projects present inherent challenges, and identifying and managing these obstacles proactively leads to successful outcomes. Focusing on comprehensive planning, strategic alignment, stakeholder engagement, and continuous improvement allows executive leaders to guide their organisations through transformative journeys that yield lasting benefits.
Synyega’s comprehensive guide “The Critical Role of Software Licensing in IT Transformation and Cloud Migration” takes a deeper dive into these considerations and other aspects of transformation and Migration projects.
