How to Collaborate with Stakeholders to Identify the Right Data for Ensuring Relevance, Business Alignment, and Reducing Complexity and Cost in Data Migration

During the early analysis phase of a data migration project, it is crucial to identify the right data by prioritizing the use cases in the target org. Doing so not only ensures data relevance and alignment with business objectives but also reduces complexity and cost, and enables effective data cleansing if needed at a later stage.

However, when we confirm the identified data with stakeholders, the response is often that all data is needed. Retaining all data may provide peace of mind, but based on my experience with data migration projects, migrating all legacy data definitely prolongs and complicates the project. It lowers overall data quality by bringing over a lot of stale data, makes testing and validation more difficult, and potentially has a negative impact on org performance.

Convincing stakeholders can be challenging, but engaging and challenging them early in the process is often worthwhile to achieve a better project outcome. This proactive approach can ultimately lead to a win-win situation for everyone involved. It's essential to engage in active dialogue to uncover the underlying reasons behind the desire to migrate all data. Based on my experience, these reasons can be categorized as follows

Possible underlying reasons

Even if a reason seems valid, there may still be room to explore alternative solutions.

Historical Context and Insights:

• Stakeholders' Concern: Stakeholders may require historical data to compare with current data and gain insights into long-term trends.

• Alternative Solution: Instead of migrating all legacy data, consider leveraging existing data warehouses or BI solutions. These tools can provide the necessary insights without burdening the Salesforce org with excessive historical data.

Compliance and Regulatory Requirements:

• Stakeholders' Concern: Regulatory mandates for data retention may lead businesses to believe that retaining all data is necessary to comply with legal obligations.

• Alternative Solution: Before opting to migrate all data, consider data archiving, warehousing solutions, or external cloud storage. These options can meet regulatory requirements while avoiding the high costs associated with storing large volumes of legacy data in Salesforce, offering a cost-effective and scalable alternative.

Integration with Other Systems:

• Stakeholders' Concern: Integrated systems may rely on historical data stored in Salesforce, leading to the belief that retaining all data is necessary for compatibility and functionality.

• Alternative Solution:

  • Centralized Data Warehouse: Store historical data in a centralized warehouse accessible to all integrated systems, including Salesforce. This allows other systems to retrieve historical data as needed, ensuring compatibility without overloading Salesforce.

  • Data Warehouse Integration: Integrate Salesforce with the data warehouse for seamless data exchange, enabling real-time access to necessary data while keeping historical data outside of Salesforce.

Early and active engagement is crucial for addressing concerns that may need to be challenged. It’s also an ideal opportunity to initiate conversations about establishing data governance and proper documentation

Fear of Data Loss and Resistance to Change:

• Stakeholders' Concern: There’s a fear that not migrating all data might result in losing valuable information critical for operations, reporting, or compliance. This concern often leads to a conservative approach, favoring the retention of everything.

• Key Facts and Alternative Solutions:

  • Highlight Data Quality Issues: Explain how migrating all data can degrade data quality, leading to duplicates, outdated information, and inconsistencies that hinder decision-making and harm customer relationships.

  • Discuss Migration Complexity: Emphasize that migrating unnecessary data complicates the process, increasing timelines, costs, and the potential for errors.

  • Share Case Studies: Provide examples where migrating all data caused complications, such as extended downtime or data integrity issues, to illustrate the risks.

  • Leverage Migration Tools: Highlight tools that focus on data cleansing and deduplication, reinforcing the importance of quality over quantity.

  • Suggest Cloud Storage: Propose using cost-effective cloud storage solutions for archiving less frequently accessed historical data. This approach allows stakeholders to retain access to all data without overloading the Salesforce environment.

  • Introduce Data Virtualization: If users need to view historical data from time to time, suggest data virtualization. This approach enables real-time access to historical data without physically migrating it to Salesforce, offering a seamless way to view and analyze legacy data when needed.

Lack of Data Governance:

• Stakeholders' Concern: Many businesses lack a clear data governance strategy, leading them to migrate all data by default to avoid tough decisions on what to keep or discard.

• Alternative Solutions:

  • Initiate Data Governance: Establish accountability, data ownership, and processes for maintaining data quality. Implementing a governance framework ensures only relevant data is migrated.

  • Develop Data Documentation: Create a data dictionary and object/field mapping documentation. Foster a culture of data responsibility to guide decision-making during migration.

Potential Future Use Cases:

• Stakeholders' Concern: The desire to retain all data may come from a forward-looking perspective, aiming to avoid missing out on future opportunities.

• Alternative Solution:

  • Promote Incremental Data Management: Encourage starting with a smaller, more manageable dataset and expanding as needed. Highlight that deleting data is harder than adding it later, making this approach more sustainable for long-term data management.

In conclusion, this is by no means a comprehensive list of strategies to convince stakeholders in a data migration project. The specific approach will depend heavily on the current system landscape and the unique challenges of the project. However, it’s crucial to engage in active and open conversations with stakeholders to uncover the underlying reasons for their concerns. Don’t hesitate to challenge their assumptions when necessary, as this dialogue is key to achieving the best outcomes for all parties involved. Your questions and suggestions are always welcome! Please feel free to contact me.