Cloud Migration Project Dashboard
This is a practical guide to building a project dashboard for a cloud migration project — a visual summary of the project’s key metrics and status, adapted to the realities of moving systems and data from on-premise infrastructure to the cloud.
What a Project Dashboard is
A project dashboard is a visual summary of the project’s key metrics and status. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Project Dashboard. 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 project dashboard 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
- Status indicators
- Schedule and cost KPIs
- Milestones
- Top risks/issues
Cloud Migration-specific considerations
Tailor the project dashboard 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 project dashboard 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.