Before you move anything, get brutally clear on what you’re migrating, why you’re migrating, and what can break. Most migration pain comes from starting execution with an incomplete picture: unknown dependencies, unclear ownership, missing success metrics, and hidden “must not fail” use cases.

If there’s one goal for “readiness,” it’s this: remove surprises. A migration is rarely hard because someone can’t copy data. It’s hard because people discover late that the thing they’re moving is tied to ten other things, nobody owns two of them, and the business expects nothing to change.

What “ready” means (a practical definition)

You’re ready to start a migration wave when you can answer these questions without hand-waving.

• Scope: What is in and out for this wave?
• Business continuity: What can’t break, and how will you protect it?
• Dependencies: What upstream and downstream systems, dashboards, and consumers depend on this?
• Ownership: Who owns the source, the pipeline, and the consumers?
• Quality & correctness: How will you prove the new output matches the old?
• Operating model: Who will run “old + new” during transition?

A good test: if you can’t explain the answers in plain language to a non-technical stakeholder, you’re not ready yet.

Readiness checklist (use this as your assessment)

1) Business readiness

This is where most migrations either get support or get blocked.

• Define the why now and the expected outcomes (cost, speed, reliability, compliance, UX).
• Identify the top 5–10 business-critical use cases that must remain stable.
• Agree on success metrics (for example: incident rate, cycle time, cost transparency, adoption).

2) People & ownership readiness

You can’t run a migration on good intentions.

• Identify the migration decision-makers and the day-to-day owners.