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Who's Responsible for What on Complex Data Migrations

Who's Responsible for What on Complex Data Migrations
Clear accountability drives successful data migrations. Use this RACI framework as a starting point to define roles and responsibilities on your project.
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Steve Novak
Steve
Novak
Vice President
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There are four main teams involved on data migration projects; the data migration team, the data owners, the application/functional team, and overall program management. Frequently, responsibilities for across the multiple teams fall to the same person. These groups work together throughout the entire implementation to ensure that the data is ready for go-live, migrated within the cutover window, and validated within the target application. Without the proper input and feedback from each of these groups, the risk of failure greatly increases. The aim of this post and the RACI chart below is to outline the roles and responsibilities of each of these groups as it pertains to data migration.

If you have questions about data migration, data management, or just love data, let's connect. My email is steve.novak@definian.com

Main skills/knowledge needed for the data migration

  • Data Owners: Understanding of the legacy system data design, data structures, and business requirements
  • Functional Team: Understanding of the target system data design and new business requirements
  • Data Migration Team: Intimate understanding of data profiling, cleansing, transformation, and migration techniques. In addition, they need to be skilled at documenting data migration processes at a functional and technical level, be detail oriented, highly organized, and understand data structures and business requirements. On projects where no one is knowledgeable about the legacy systems data design, the data migration team also needs to be able to fill that gap and have the tools and techniques needed to quickly gain the understanding of how the legacy systems work.
  • Program Management: Understanding of the entire implementation and how to implement/manage the overall project plan.

Extract Raw Data From Legacy Applications

  • Responsible - Data Migration Team
  • Accountable - Data Owners
  • Consulted - Functional Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Create Profile/Legacy Landscape Reports

  • Responsible - Data Migration Team
  • Accountable - Data Owners
  • Consulted - Functional Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Review Profile/Legacy Landscape Reports

  • Responsible - Data Owners & Functional Team
  • Accountable - Data Migration Team
  • Consulted - Functional Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Define Analysis Reporting Requirements for Legacy Data Cleansing

  • Responsible - Data Owners
  • Accountable - Data Migration Team
  • Consulted - Functional Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Define Analysis Reporting Requirements for Data Mapping

  • Responsible - Functional Team
  • Accountable - Data Migration Team
  • Consulted - Data Owners
  • Informed - Program Management

Define Analysis Reporting Requirements for Data Enrichment

  • Responsible - Functional Team
  • Accountable - Data Migration Team
  • Consulted - Data Owners
  • Informed - Program Management

Define Data Mapping/Data Design Requirements

  • Responsible - Data Owners
  • Accountable - Functional Team
  • Consulted - Data Migration Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Create and Manage Data Quality Strategy

  • Responsible - Data Migration Team
  • Accountable - Data Owners
  • Consulted - Functional Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Create and Manage Data Enrichment Strategy

  • Responsible - Data Migration Team
  • Accountable - Data Owners
  • Consulted - Functional Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Cleanse Data within the Legacy System

  • Responsible - Data Owners
  • Accountable - Data Migration Team
  • Consulted - Functional Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Develop Data Migration Programs

  • Responsible - Data Migration Team
  • Accountable - Data Owners
  • Consulted - Functional Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Develop Cutover Plan

  • Responsible - Program Management
  • Accountable - Data Migration Team
  • Consulted - Data Owners
  • Informed - Functional Team

Unit Test Data Conversion Programs

  • Responsible - Data Migration Team
  • Accountable - Data Owners
  • Consulted - Functional Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Validate Data in Target Application

  • Responsible - Data Owners
  • Accountable - Functional Team
  • Consulted - Data Migration Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Develop Reconciliation/Data Audit Requirements

  • Responsible - Data Owners
  • Accountable - Functional Team
  • Consulted - Data Migration Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Develop/Execute Programs that Automate Reconciliation/Data Audit Requirements

  • Responsible - Data Migration Team
  • Accountable - Data Owners
  • Consulted - Functional Team
  • Informed - Program Management

Validate Converted Data

  • Responsible - Data Owners
  • Accountable - Functional Team
  • Consulted - Data Migration Team
  • Informed - Program Management

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