When most people hear the phrase "SharePoint migration," they usually imagine moving documents from one
location to another. Copy the files, validate the data, cut users over to the new environment, and move
on to the next project.
In reality, it is never that simple. I know firsthand.
Over the years, I have learned that a SharePoint migration is rarely about SharePoint. It is about
people, processes, habits, workarounds, technical debt, and years of accumulated business decisions that
have become embedded in the technology supporting them.
The first surprise usually comes during discovery.
What appears to be a simple document library often turns out to be much more. Hidden behind folders and
files are approval processes, business rules, custom permissions, workflows, forms, spreadsheets acting
as unofficial databases, and critical processes that nobody has documented because everyone simply knows
how they work.
Then someone opens an InfoPath form.
What looked like a simple form turns into years of business logic layered on top of business logic.
Required fields, validation rules, email notifications, approval chains, conditional formatting, and
dependencies that only become obvious when you start asking questions. Suddenly, replacing a form
becomes less about technology and more about understanding how the business actually operates.
The next lesson is that technology rarely owns the process.
Business leaders, department managers, coordinators, and end users own the process. They understand why
the form exists, what information matters, and how decisions are made. A migration project becomes
successful when those people are engaged early and often.
Some of the best conversations I have had during modernization projects started with a simple
question.
"What problem are we trying to solve?"
Often the answer is very different from the solution that currently exists.
A workflow that sends ten emails may only exist because somebody needed approval from three people years
ago. A complex form may have been built to compensate for a missing process. A document library
containing hundreds of files may actually contain only a handful of documents that people use
regularly.
Modernization provides an opportunity to challenge these assumptions.
This is where Power Automate, Power Apps, modern SharePoint forms, and other Microsoft 365 services
become valuable. They allow organizations to rebuild solutions using modern tools, but more importantly,
they provide an opportunity to simplify processes that have become unnecessarily complicated over
time.
Not every workflow should be recreated exactly as it exists today.
Not every form deserves a one-to-one replacement.
Sometimes the best solution is a simpler solution.
Once the development work is complete, another phase begins that many people underestimate: the
cutover.
A successful cutover is not simply a technical event. It is a communication event.
Users need to know what is changing, when it is changing, what to expect, where to go for help, and how
their daily work will be affected. Technical success means very little if users arrive Monday morning
and do not know where their forms, workflows, or documents have gone.
That is why communication, training, and user engagement are often just as important as the technical
implementation itself.
I have also learned that migration projects expose technical debt in ways few other projects can.
Duplicate content, broken permissions, unclear ownership, outdated processes, and years of neglected
governance all become visible the moment someone starts asking difficult questions about why things
exist and who is responsible for maintaining them.
This is not a bad thing.
In many cases, it is one of the most valuable outcomes of the entire project.
A migration creates a rare opportunity for organizations to evaluate what they are doing, why they are
doing it, and whether there is a better way forward.
Looking back, the technology has rarely been the hardest part of a SharePoint migration. The hardest
part is understanding the business processes behind the technology and helping people navigate the
change.
Documents are easy to move.
Workflows can be rebuilt.
Forms can be modernized.
Helping an organization move forward while bringing its people, processes, and content along with
it—that is where the real work begins.
That is why a SharePoint migration is never just a migration. 🐦🐦