Cloud Migration Benefits Realisation Plan
This is a practical guide to building a benefits realisation plan for a cloud migration project — how the project’s benefits will be measured and actually realised, adapted to the realities of moving systems and data from on-premise infrastructure to the cloud.
What a Benefits Realisation Plan is
A benefits realisation plan is how the project’s benefits will be measured and actually realised. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Benefits Realization. On a cloud migration project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Cloud Migration project
Cloud Migration projects live or die on moving systems and data from on-premise infrastructure to the cloud. A well-built benefits realisation plan gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how cloud migration projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Target benefits
- Metrics / KPIs
- Baseline values
- Owner
- Realisation timeline
Cloud Migration-specific considerations
Tailor the benefits realisation plan to the risks that most often derail cloud migration projects:
- Underestimated dependencies
- Downtime and data-loss risk
- Runaway cloud costs post-migration
Example
On a real cloud migration project, the benefits realisation plan would be shaped by moving systems and data from on-premise infrastructure to the cloud. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — underestimated dependencies, downtime and data-loss risk, runaway cloud costs post-migration — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.