Data Migration Benefits Realisation Plan
This is a practical guide to building a benefits realisation plan for a data migration project — how the project’s benefits will be measured and actually realised, adapted to the realities of moving data from legacy systems into a new platform.
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 data migration project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Data Migration project
Data Migration projects live or die on moving data from legacy systems into a new platform. 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 data migration projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Target benefits
- Metrics / KPIs
- Baseline values
- Owner
- Realisation timeline
Data Migration-specific considerations
Tailor the benefits realisation plan to the risks that most often derail data migration projects:
- Data quality and lineage
- Field mapping errors
- Reconciliation and cutover
Example
On a real data migration project, the benefits realisation plan would be shaped by moving data from legacy systems into a new platform. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — data quality and lineage, field mapping errors, reconciliation and cutover — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.