This is the DX Manifesto for 100% data migration. Or: the 7 things to get right when migrating your valuable data.

The huge impact of digital transformation

Digital transformation is all about creating new customer journeys. New journeys that are supported by new core systems built for real-time interaction, machine learning smarts and whatever the future holds.

To function effectively, all these new core systems need data that’s been migrated from existing systems. So your customers continue paying their mortgages and their pension entitlements stay intact.

Getting it right

It’s critical to get it right when migrating data to a new system for many reasons. From wanting to avoid embarrassing issues arising with customers. Or because your accounting or legal department recommend it. Or to avoid the chance of reputational damage. And often it’s simply a requirement of supervisory authorities in your sector. And for them in particular, you need to be able to show the migration has been 100% successful.

No big deal?

What’s the big deal, you might say? It’s simply a question of exporting data from one system and uploading it onto another - how difficult can it be? And if it does get complicated, you just use a spreadsheet, right?

And why migrate in the first place? The new system uses Oracle just like the old one did. Or: all data is in the cloud. The new system also uses the cloud.

Well, actually...

For one, your new system is very different from your existing one. The concepts are different, the operation is different. Your data won’t simply ‘fit’ in the new system and, as much as you may want to, there’s no way to just shoehorn it in.

What’s more, your source data is almost certainly dirty - it probably doesn’t even comply with the business rules of the system it’s currently in. Or it contains contracts no one even knows about anymore.

Another complicating factor is often that your new, ready-for-the-brave-new-world core system is still being worked on and isn’t completely ready yet. Scrum teams - working in their agile way -  build the functionality and underlying data structures. So, migrating is like shooting at a moving target: not easy.

And finally, you need to prove that it’s good-to-go. That is, that everything has been accounted for and no data left behind on the migration battlefield. Proving correctness isn’t easy - amongst other things, it requires a deep understanding of the domain model and reporting requirements of the relevant supervisory authorities.

So, reasons enough then to make migrating your valuable data a big deal, after all. And a big deal that’s not easy to do, and certainly not easy to get 100% right.

Good news!

But here’s the good news: we’ve created this manifesto to help you through this challenging process: 7 things to get right for successfully migrating your data.

This manifesto is based on our 250,000 hours of experience with migrating data for financial and public institutions. It contains our beliefs, best practices, benchmarks and war stories. You’ll sometimes find our insights contradict or challenge your own intuition. You’ll see benchmarks you may find difficult to believe. Well, challenge your intuitions, believe those numbers. And start migrating your valuable data, the right way!

Nothing changes, really

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