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Tetra Connects

Solutions

Implementations and migrations

Large changes fail in the gaps between teams, systems and phases. We run the whole lifecycle with named deliverables, explicit decision points and rehearsed cutovers.

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Why this is a practice of its own

Implementations and migrations are not the same as consulting or staffing. They are programs with a start, an end, a cutover and consequences if the cutover fails.

What matters in them is the discipline around the technology: a plan with owners, data that is cleaned and reconciled, testing that matches how the business works, and a way back if something goes wrong. We organize our delivery work around that discipline, and we write down what you will receive at each stage.

Twelve kinds of migration

Seven stages, with a decision at the end of each

Select a stage to see what happens in it, what you receive and what has to be true before the program moves on.

Discover

Understand the business, the current system and what needs to change before anyone designs anything.

What happens

  • Interview sponsors, process owners and users about goals and pain points.
  • Inventory the current system, its modules, customizations and users.
  • List integrations, interfaces, reports and batch jobs.
  • Note technical debt and anything nobody can explain.
  • Agree what success looks like and how it will be judged.

What you receive

  • Discovery report
  • Current-state assessment
  • Stakeholder map and initial risk list

Before moving on

Sponsors agree the goals, the scope boundary and who decides.

Assess

Test the idea against the facts: what fits, what does not and what could go wrong.

What happens

  • Run a gap analysis between current processes and the target platform.
  • Check readiness: data quality, skills, infrastructure and governance.
  • Map dependencies between systems, teams and calendar events such as period close.
  • Assess risk and feasibility, including the option of not doing it.
  • Estimate effort ranges and state the assumptions behind them.

What you receive

  • Fit-gap analysis
  • Readiness and dependency assessment
  • Risk register
  • Option comparison and estimate ranges

Before moving on

A decision to proceed, change scope or stop, with the reasons written down.

Architect

Decide how the target will work and how you will get there.

What happens

  • Define the solution architecture and target-state design.
  • Choose the migration strategy: phased, big bang, parallel or wave by wave.
  • Design the integration landscape, with ownership for each interface.
  • Set security, identity and compliance requirements.
  • Set non-functional requirements: performance, availability, recovery, audit.

What you receive

  • Architecture diagrams
  • Solution design document
  • Integration specification
  • Data migration strategy
  • Security requirements

Before moving on

Design authority signs off architecture, and the plan has dates and owners.

Implement

Build and configure to the approved design, in increments the business can see.

What happens

  • Configure the platform and build approved extensions.
  • Build and test integrations against realistic data.
  • Establish environments, pipelines and infrastructure as code.
  • Build the extraction, transformation and load programs.
  • Hold regular demonstrations for process owners.

What you receive

  • Functional specification
  • Technical specification
  • Configured and tested components
  • Environment and pipeline documentation

Before moving on

Process owners accept each increment against the design.

Validate

Prove it works, with evidence, before production sees it.

What happens

  • Run unit, system integration and regression tests.
  • Support user acceptance testing by named business testers.
  • Test performance at expected volumes, and test security.
  • Run data migration rehearsals and reconcile every object.
  • Check operational readiness: monitoring, backup, support and training.

What you receive

  • Test strategy and results
  • UAT documentation and sign-off record
  • Reconciliation reports per rehearsal
  • Operational readiness checklist

Before moving on

Entry and exit criteria are met, or exceptions are accepted by the owner in writing.

Deploy

Move to production through a rehearsed, reversible cutover.

What happens

  • Rehearse the cutover and time every step.
  • Agree go and no-go criteria and who makes the call.
  • Run the cutover with the plan, the people and a communication channel.
  • Verify production against agreed checks before opening to users.
  • Keep a tested rollback ready until the decision point passes.

What you receive

  • Cutover runbook
  • Rollback plan
  • Deployment checklist
  • Production verification record

Before moving on

The go or no-go decision, recorded with who made it and on what evidence.

Optimize

Stabilize, hand over and keep improving.

What happens

  • Provide hypercare: fast response to issues through the first cycles of real use.
  • Fix defects and tune performance and reports.
  • Transfer knowledge to your team or support provider.
  • Move to the support model you chose.
  • Review outcomes against the goals set in discovery.

What you receive

  • Hypercare plan
  • Knowledge transfer documentation
  • Operational handover package
  • Lessons learned and improvement backlog

Before moving on

The support owner accepts the handover and hypercare ends on agreed criteria.

Stages overlap in practice. Data migration, for example, starts in Assess and continues through Deploy. The gates are the points where someone with authority decides to continue.

Deliverables library

Each deliverable has a plain explanation for sponsors and a technical description for the people who build and test. Filter by stage or search by word.

  • Discovery report

    A written picture of the business, the current system, who is affected and what the project is meant to achieve.

    Technical detail

    Stakeholder interviews, process inventory, system inventory, interface list, pain points, goals and constraints. Written so a new team member can follow it.

  • Current-state assessment

    What you have today: systems, data, customizations, interfaces, support effort and known problems.

    Technical detail

    Application and infrastructure inventory, data volumes and quality profile, customization count, support ticket trends, technical debt notes, license and contract dates.

  • Fit-gap analysis

    A line-by-line comparison of what the business needs and what the new platform does out of the box.

    Technical detail

    Requirement, standard capability, gap type (configure, extend, change process, do not do), effort estimate, decision owner. Basis for scope and cost.

  • Architecture diagrams

    Pictures of how the systems fit together, now and after the project.

    Technical detail

    Context, logical and deployment views. Integration map. Data flow. Security zones. Versioned with the design document.

  • Solution design document

    The agreed design: how processes, data, security and integrations will work in the new system.

    Technical detail

    Process designs, enterprise structure, data model, roles, integration design, non-functional requirements, decisions and the reasons for them.

  • Functional specification

    What a feature or report must do, written so a business owner can confirm it is right.

    Technical detail

    Requirement reference, process steps, business rules, inputs, outputs, error cases, authorizations, acceptance criteria.

  • Technical specification

    How a developer will build it: the logic, objects, interfaces and tests.

    Technical detail

    Object design, APIs or programs, data structures, performance considerations, error handling, unit test cases, transport or deployment notes.

  • Integration specification

    How two systems will exchange information, who owns the connection and what happens when it fails.

    Technical detail

    Interface contract (schema, protocol, authentication), volumes, schedule or trigger, mapping, error handling and retry, monitoring, owner.

  • Data migration strategy

    What data will move, in what order, who cleans it and how everyone will know it arrived correctly.

    Technical detail

    Objects in scope, history rules, extraction and load method, cleansing rules, rehearsal schedule, reconciliation measures and tolerances, sign-off owners.

  • Test strategy

    What will be tested, by whom, with what data and what counts as passing.

    Technical detail

    Test levels and entry and exit criteria, environments, data, automation scope, defect process, performance and security tests, reporting.

  • UAT documentation

    Test scripts business users run, and the record that they accepted the results.

    Technical detail

    Scenarios tied to requirements, scripts, expected results, evidence capture, defect log, sign-off form with names and dates.

  • Cutover runbook

    The minute-by-minute plan for the move to production.

    Technical detail

    Task list with owners, durations and dependencies, checkpoints, communication plan, go and no-go criteria, contact list, rehearsal timings.

  • Rollback plan

    How to go back safely if the cutover does not work, and the point after which going back is not possible.

    Technical detail

    Decision point, triggers, steps to restore systems and data, time needed, data created since cutover and how it is handled.

  • Risk register

    A running list of what could go wrong, how likely it is and what is being done about it.

    Technical detail

    Risk, cause, impact, likelihood, owner, mitigation, trigger, status. Reviewed in every governance meeting.

  • Deployment checklist

    A short, checked list of everything that must be true before and after a release.

    Technical detail

    Approvals, backups, environment checks, deployment steps, smoke tests, monitoring in place, communication sent.

  • Knowledge transfer documentation

    What the people who will run the system need to know, written down and taught.

    Technical detail

    System overview, configuration guide, runbooks, known issues, support contacts, recorded walkthroughs, training sign-offs.

  • Hypercare plan

    How issues will be handled in the weeks after go-live, and when that special attention ends.

    Technical detail

    Duration, staffing and hours, issue triage and priorities, daily review, exit criteria, handover to support.

  • Operational handover package

    Everything the support team needs on day one: documents, access, monitoring and contacts.

    Technical detail

    Architecture and runbooks, access list, monitoring and alert rules, backup and recovery procedures, change process, open defects, support model.

The set varies by project. A small migration may combine several of these into one document.

Who is responsible for what

AreaTetra Connects, when we deliver the programYour team
Plan and governanceMaintain the plan, risks and status reporting. Run the steering and working meetings.Sponsor the program, decide priorities, release budget and people.
Requirements and process designFacilitate workshops. Document designs and decisions.Process owners decide how the business should work.
Build and configurationBuild to the approved design and show progress in demonstrations.Review and accept increments.
DataBuild extraction, transformation and load. Run rehearsals and reconciliation.Own the data. Agree cleansing rules and sign off each object.
TestingWrite the test strategy, run system and integration tests, support UAT.Business testers run UAT and give the sign-off.
CutoverPrepare and run the runbook, including rollback.Make or confirm the go and no-go decision.
Training and adoptionPrepare materials and train the trainers.Communicate the change and manage adoption in the business.
Hypercare and handoverFix issues, transfer knowledge and hand over.Name the support owner and accept the handover.

This is a typical split. Each statement of work sets the real one.

How a cutover is rehearsed

  1. Rehearsal 1 Find what breaks. Time every step.
  2. Fix and tune Correct data and scripts. Shorten the longest tasks.
  3. Rehearsal 2 Reconcile and test with business users.
  4. Dress rehearsal Full timing, people and communication.
  5. Go or no-go Agreed criteria, decision owner named.
  6. Cutover Run the runbook. Verify. Rollback ready.
The number of rehearsals depends on size and risk. The point is that the first full run is never the real one.

Questions people ask

Do you handle the whole program or only parts?

Either. Some clients ask us to run the full lifecycle. Others ask for data migration, testing or integration only. The statement of work states which.

How long will our migration take?

We give ranges after discovery and assessment, with the assumptions behind them. A number before that would be a guess.

What happens if the cutover fails?

The rollback plan is written and rehearsed before cutover. The decision point and the criteria are agreed in advance.

Do you also provide the people to run it afterwards?

Yes, through managed services or staffing, but that is a separate decision and a separate agreement.

Is the consultation a sales pitch?

It is a conversation to understand the project. You receive questions and a suggested next step, not a quote.

Related

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Phone, United States (470) 948-0356 Phone, India +91 70321 51545 Email info@tetraconnects.com