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The Emails That Keep a Migration Moving
Most of a migration is run by email, and four of them do almost all the work. Each one carries the same four parts, and the parts are the reason they work.
The short version. Every project email says what you need to do, what I am doing, by when, and where the plan is. Then it asks the reader to confirm they got it.
The four parts
Before the list: which part do you think gets left out most often, and costs the most?
1. Your next actions, with dates. Named person, named action, named day. This is the part that makes things happen. Gollwitzer and Sheeran's meta-analysis of ninety four tests found that turning an intention into a specific when and how produced a medium to large improvement in follow through. Your email is that mechanism pointed at somebody else's week.
2. Our next actions, with dates. It shows the work is moving and it makes the exchange reciprocal rather than a list of demands.
3. A link to the plan. Every time, even when nothing changed. It is where anyone can orient themselves without asking you.
4. The impact of any delay, in terms of their goal. Not "this will delay the project" but "this moves go-live past your October audit".
The one most often missing is the fourth, and it is the one that turns a status update into a reason to act.
Email 1: the meeting follow up
Every meeting gets one, the same day. Four sections and a request.
- Completed since last time. Short. It builds the sense that this is moving.
- Your next actions, with owners and dates.
- Our next actions, with dates.
- Anything that changed on the timeline, and why.
- The request: "Please confirm you have received this and forward to anyone who needs it."
That last line is the most valuable sentence in the whole email. It gives you a reply on the record, and it puts the forwarding where it belongs, with the person who knows their own organization. You are not there to manage their address book.
Email 2: the stage sign off
Every gate closes with one of these. A formal signature is rare in practice. This gets you the same thing.
We have completed the field mapping and are now moving on to cleaning.
Please confirm that the mapping meets your expectations. If it does not, book time with me as soon as possible so we can adjust it and keep moving towards your go-live on 20 July.
As a reminder, our contract runs to 1 September. After that point any remaining services may carry additional cost. I am confident we can finish well inside that, and the plan is here [link].
Three things are doing work there. It states what closed and what opens. It asks for confirmation while offering a meeting rather than demanding a signature. And it names a real external date. Ariely and Wertenbroch found external deadlines improved performance more than self imposed ones, which is why the contract date belongs in the email and invented urgency does not.
Email 3: the chase
Same shape as everything else, with the ask made smaller and one external date attached. Full ladder in when the client goes quiet.
Sarah, the mapping sheet needs decisions on the 14 rows highlighted in yellow. Everything else is agreed.
Could you send those back by Thursday 12th? That lets cleaning start on the 13th and keeps the October go-live in place.
We would love to complete your project inside the contract term, which runs to 1 September. Please get in touch as soon as you can so we can carry on the work we have started.
Email 4: the handoff
Sent at the end of hypercare, and it should not read as an ending you are relieved about.
- What was achieved, against the goal they set at kickoff, in their numbers.
- The final reconciliation report attached.
- Their ongoing contact, introduced by name, with what that person is good at.
- Where the archive of non migrated data lives.
- Thanks to the people who did the testing, by name.
Naming the testers matters more than it looks. They did unpaid extra work inside a busy job, and their manager is on the email.
Habits that make all four work
Same day. A follow up that arrives two days later has already lost to the version people remember.
Same shape every time. People learn where to look, and start skimming to the right place.
Dates, never "soon". Every action carries a day.
Reply fast. Your own turnaround is the one part of the communication record entirely within your control.
Picture your own inbox on a Monday. Which of these emails would you actually action first, and what made it? That is the design brief for all four.
The one habit
Ask for confirmation of receipt in every follow up. It is one sentence, it creates the record, and it moves the forwarding to the person who should be doing it.
What is the one line you always include in a project email?
Up next
Keeping Your Own Files Straight →Previously: Scope Creep and the Project Plan · All eight stages
Counting rows, grouping to find duplicates, and joining to find orphans covers most of what a migration asks of you. The SQL Kit teaches those moves in order, with the data in front of you.
Open the SQL Kit →Or start typing straight away: open SQL Drill, thirteen queries that each add one thing to the last.
You are moving a client’s records into a new system, and the part that worries you is the week the client goes quiet. The Data Migration Playbook is all eight stages in order, 63 pages, from the first kickoff meeting through hypercare, so you can run one without finding the important question three weeks too late.
The Data Migration Playbook, $29 →References
- Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119.
- Ariely, D., & Wertenbroch, K. (2002). Procrastination, deadlines, and performance: Self-control by precommitment. Psychological Science, 13(3), 219–224. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00441