3 recommendations for successful migration, with emphasis on users - Tips 2. "Sell" the migration

In a change process – such as migration – you may encounter a degree of opposition from users. In the event of a migration, a common reaction from the company and its users is the view, "Oh no, the IT department are going to swap/upgrade our systems AGAIN!".

If users oppose the migration project and have negative attitudes towards migration, they will be less tolerant of any problems that may arise within the project. Preparing and involving users in the right way can reduce opposition, which may help you to avoid headaches when the technology fails to work as you migrate the systems. Placing emphasis on users can turn the IT and support departments into the company's "heroes" instead of them being seen as "creators of problems" that restrict users.

Transparent communication on expectations

To reduce objections within the company in the event of a migration project, the project team should explain the benefits of migration and tell people, step by step, how migration will be taking place.

Explain the benefits of migration

Companies rarely know why migration is taking place and what benefits it will afford; often because there is a lack of information and the members of the migration project have not prioritised the provision of information on this. Explaining the benefits of migration to users helps to create a good foundation for smooth running of the migration project as everyone understands why migration is taking place.

Examples of benefits may include enhancing quality, finding new opportunities, introducing new functionality or reducing costs. It is important to think to remember to emphasise the benefits to users and the company ahead of the benefits to the IT department, which may of course may be every bit as important; but users will not realise this. One example of benefits to users may include greater system accessibility, such as by introducing a webbased version of a program which users can access remotely.

One benefit for the IT department may, for example, be a more centralised and rightsrestricted IT environment. However, this does mean greater restrictions for users. Of course, major benefits and reasons for migration for the IT department should be emphasised if they are linked to the IT environment, as well as financial benefits. Often companies are bound by various licences and/or support agreements which require them to migrate their systems to later versions.

To summarise: here, we recommend that you select the biggest, most obvious benefits and the benefits to users and the company.

Open prioritisation of the progress of migration

To reduce negative responses from the company, it is also important to communicate in advance to end-users how migration will be taking place. Explain about the company's critical factors and what stages will be implemented, and in which order. Ideally, refer to earlier surveys of the company's needs.

Create involvement during migration

As mentioned in the first section, it is important to listen to the company's needs in order to lay a decent foundation for a successful migration project. By also involving users throughout the entire change process, you will make users feel that the...

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