To read the previous entry in this blog series, click here.

So it's time to roll up the sleeves and make things happen: your move/migration is real.  And these boxes/files/images won't move themselves.

To read the previous entry in this blog series, click here.

You’ve strategized.  You’ve inventoried.  You’ve cleaned up.  It’s time to answer the pivotal question: how are we going to get this stuff from here to there?  If the move in question is from your college apartment to your parents’ basement, the family minivan might be all you need (and all you can afford).  But if you’re moving from a multi-floor penthouse in Manhattan to a beachfront palace in the Hamptons, the challenge is entirely different.  Similarly, the size, complexity, and available resources associated with a content migration effort will drive the approach definition process, which at its essence involves defining the degree to which the execution of the migration will be automated. 

To read the previous entry in this blog series, click here.

Of all the moments that make you anxious for the moving process to come to an end, my least favorite might be those that include the following sentiment:  “Why in the world didn’t we just throw/give that away?”  Every occasion in which I opened a box and that thought came to mind corresponded to a case of unnecessary effort, unjustified cost, and unwanted frustration.  Avoiding similar moments for business users should be a goal of content migration.

To read the previous entry in this blog series, click here.

If, a week before moving out of my old house, someone had asked me to list off the top of my head every item that would be loaded onto the truck, and then asked me to reproduce that list a week after we moved in, my guess is the two lists would have varied from each other by 50% and even more than that from reality.  Fortunately, my moving company painstakingly compiled page upon page of inventory, categorized by box where necessary, and assigned each item a unique identifier.  This same inventory was then used by the move-in team to validate that all of our belongings had made it to the other end.  Had such an inventory not been developed, I would have been forced to decide if I was willing to sign off on delivery having only eyeballed an overwhelming volume and variety of stuff, nearly all of it s

To read the introduction to this blog series, click... Content Migration for Enterprise Portals: Almost as much fun as moving

“How much stuff do we have?  How should we estimate that?”

“Should we just get a U-Haul and move ourselves, or do we need a professional carrier?”

 “How long will it be between boxing up our belongings and being able to unpack them?  What do we need access to during that period?”

These are just a few of the many questions that must be answered as you decide how to execute a move.  Each has a parallel encountered during the initial stages of content migration planning.