As we’ve mentioned in a previous blog post, we often meet with potential clients who are interested in using OpenMigrate to meet a migration need but they haven’t yet identified specific migration requirements beyond the need to move documents from one location to another.  It is important to identify requirements and an overall migration strategy as early as possible as migrations provide a great opportunity to “clean up” content management systems.  This “cleansing” can be through object model updates, metadata cleansing, deletion or archival of obsolete documents, or other business related decisions.

In this vein, Forrester Research released a report in June detailing the importance of defining a clear ECM migration and deployment strategy.  The report, Maximize the Business Value of New ECM Deployments with a Clear Migration Strategy.  We have reviewed the report and find it provides a good overview of importance of a well-planned migration strategy.  It especially emphasizes that migrations must be a collaboration between both IT resources and business users.

The report is a worthwhile read for anyone planning an ECM migration in the short or long term future.  If you review the report, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below!