I recently project managed a Windows 7 to Windows 10 migration, involving over 5000 users over 6 sites in two European countries.
I would like to share some of the key activities usually required to lay the groundwork in order to later perform a successful rollout.
- Assessing and confirming the project scope and ensure design documents are approved and signed off.
- Project requirements. Several items might need to be reviewed and discussed with the client, see the section below.
- Project plan. Writing, maintaining and aligning it with the other streams, providing and reporting against realistic dates.
- Infrastructure build: SCCM config and Fat Client PXE build complete
- Preparation tasks include: Confirming Win10 Version, configuring AD OU, GPO, Task Sequence, Appsense config, writing of test cases, etc.
- Acceptance into service: processes and procedures.
- Rollout approach. A critical piece of work that has to be discussed and agreed by the stakeholders. It is recommended to start with a Pilot test phases involving perhaps 100 users from different groups, and then once that is proven to be successful move into migrating the remaining lot.
Requirements include:
- Infrastructure requirements: Server, Network, Security, FW (connectivity in place between sites, data centers and end point)
- Windows 10 build requirement: Windows Build Customization (basic, regional, user group and other classes of specific settings might be needed)
- Application packaging: in our case we had over 500 applications which needed to be repackaged in order to be Windows 10 compatible
- Open gaps that might require further attention
In the next post I will share a sample project plan displaying common milestones required for a Windows 10 Migration.