How to Get Started with a Desktop Migration

How To Get Started With A Desktop Migration
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A Desktop Migration

I know it seems like a strange place to begin, but I am often amazed at how few I.T. projects allow time to plan to build a plan. Several people stared bewildered at the program manager when I heard the program manager say “Plan for the Plan” for the first time. Even though it was his job to develop the plan, he said he needed to begin with a plan before starting a desktop migration services project.

Large-scale I.T. projects do not begin on Day Number 1. This is a common misconception. That is not the case. Everyone involved in a project needs to understand the objectives of the program, their roles, and who they should get involved with, to succeed.

Shareholder discussions are a good example:

  • Are the Shareholders in agreement regarding the main objectives and what they expect from the project?
  • What milestones should we aim for?
  • What objectives will the various delivery teams need? How should we engage with them?
  • Is there a schedule that should be followed?

What are the project’s risks?

I.T. project managers should provide their clients with a project plan that includes agreed-upon start and end dates. By creating a plan for the main plan, you can allocate time to identifying the essential objectives and getting approval before implementing the actual plan. As important as the plan itself can be the plan for the main plan.

Develop Your Project Scope

Knowing your end destination is essential. In other words, you need to understand the entire expectations of your users from start to finish. This includes the current infrastructure in place and the relevant tools required to provision the new plan, including the problem ticket systems used to help them. Your migration will include many aspects of the I.T. services you deliver to your end-users. Therefore, you need to consider the bigger picture in totality, not just the technical parts.

For example, if you plan to upgrade to Windows 10 in the future, you should also consider future upgrades, as Microsoft can sometimes bring out two or three major feature updates each year. Even though you do not need to plan a specific Windows upgrade plan now, you should remember that upgrades are necessary bi-annually or annually after the initial migration. For example, you may wish to choose tools based on this consideration as your project management software will need to be able to handle future changes.

Your number one priority should be agreeing on the scope and outcome of the project before making significant changes or just upgrading in general. This one presents an excellent chance to change and improve things for your end-user as much as other projects. A scope creep issue is equally likely to occur in this project. You could end up blowing your budget, time, and resources to deliver if there are no clear boundaries.

The scope and deliverables need to be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound). You need to make sure your budget, timeline, and resource plan can meet the objectives you stated in your business case.

Get the Right Team Together

Get The Right Team Together

We have worked with hundreds of I.T. migration experts across multiple projects, and we can say that determining the right people and skills is one of the most critical factors of any project.

Establishing the proper project structure is essential as establishing governance roles and management responsibilities. Your team may include just a couple of individuals, or it may number hundreds, depending on the size of the project. It is imperative to make this team as efficient as possible while simultaneously coordinating all the moving parts to deliver the target state.

Consider the different skill sets that your team will need when building it. Among the multitude of individuals required for the successful delivery of your project are technical project managers, program officers, project managers, process experts, infrastructure experts, build engineers, business liaison officers, risk managers, communications experts, logistics coordinators, deployment engineers, schedulers, software developers, application discoverers, application administrators, application packagers, and user acceptance testers.

Think about skills that you may not have in-house as well.

Are you capable of running the project in-house?

Is it necessary to supplement your resources?

How do you handle hardware logistics? Do you hire third parties?

You will likely need a mix of internal and external resources to complete your project. Defining the responsibilities and roles of your project team, establishing your goals, and planning how you will structure your project so that you can provide an excellent framework from the onset for your project.

Identify the infrastructure and platforms you plan to use

To successfully migrate desktops, you must have a platform on which your operating system, applications, and end-user computing system environment will run.

As a result, your target infrastructure will likely be composed of a combination of fat and thin clients, virtual machines, and mobile devices, as well as an enterprise application store. If you calculate your target numbers for each type of user or migration and the size of your infrastructure, you will be able to handle any required changes during the project.

An evaluation of your everyday desktop management system and deployment technologies. Furthermore, the supporting systems could also reveal a need for updating and upgrading. Many organizations will take advantage of Windows 10 to migrate to the latest upgrade of SCCM, develop end-user applications stores, improve the management of asset processes, and get their environments in order. Incorporating this work into your project plan and creating dependencies will help you set targets that can be met right from the beginning.

To ease the migration process and ensure the right result of the new operating environment once your users have moved onto the new system, you need to get your architecture right and test multiple deployment use cases.

Conclusion

While it may seem highly daunting when embarking on such a long project, the end goal should always be kept in mind. i.e. What will the overall benefits to the Company be? How much money will it save the Company in the long run by having smarter, efficient, and more modern I.T systems?

Thank you for reading!