A critical IT migration on short notice

How a mission impossible became a success story

Heineken uses a complex IT structure that influences the complete business process. From the brewing to the distribution of beer to cellar tank installations and supporting systems such as accounting and IT services. For business continuity it was necessary to migrate or replace several applications. This brought with it some significant challenges as proper insight into applications and supporting infrastructure or a uniform migration approach did not exist and internal capacity was limited. Our project manager Jeffry Turfboer was hired to get this migration project on track and guide it.

From chaos to continuity

The complexity of Heineken’s IT structure demanded a swift and structured approach. Without a dependable inventory or standardized migration process disruptions of mission critical processes was a real risk. The tight deadline increased the urgency to execute – which meant that resources were made available for the execution but the business risk did add to the pressure under which the project needed to be completed successfully.  A challenge that Jeffry took with both hands.

Within a year he developed a uniform migration process and executed this successfully. He assembled a team and lead the inventory and migration of all applications and servers to newer platforms without disrupting the business. In this case we discover the approach, the challenges and the results.

Achievements

• All applications were migrated to a future-proof platform or replaced by alternatives.
• Migrated applications were all onboarded and assigned to maintenance.
• For each migration an inventory form, a migration plan and a technical design are available.
• The outdated Microsoft Windows Servers have been shut down and decommissioned.

Human approach for a technical question

At the start of the project the deadline seemed impossible to achieve: “We didn’t know which applications and servers were in scope. It turned out to be 100 applications running on 244 servers in total. There were ideas on a migration approach but those had not been adopted as standard. Everybody was busy, worried about the deadline and didn’t know where to start. On top of that, carnival was approaching which is peak period for Heineken. The business had to keep running full steam to keep up with demand.”

Jeffry started immediately with creating insight and predictability. Next he assembled a team to coordinate the inventory and migration of all applications and servers. “We had the assess where we stood in the process and who could do what. By creating an inventory of all applications and servers and by creating a step-by-step plan for the migration we created clarity on the approach, expectations and the deadline. This gave the team the confidence and peace of mind that the deadline was achievable.

Jeffry developed a motivating and people-focused approach to achieve the deadline. “I reworked the technical question: rather than focusing solely on which servers we had to migrate I asked teams which applications were essential for their processes and what the impact would be if we did not make the deadline. This way the migration became a more tangible subject, making people feel more involved with and responsible for the solution.”

 Structure, communication and perseverance

The new structure was crucial to achieving the project results but in the end the team members were the critical factor. “I engaged with everybody. ‘Can you contribute to this project, will it fit in your schedule? If not, how can we make sure your knowledge is taken into consideration?”

It soon became apparent that the availability of resources was insufficient. Jeffry decided to recruit six project members. “There they are on Monday morning, ready to go. But what is the best way to get them onboarded? How do you get people to work together? Managing the team and making sure the right people were in the right place to achieve the required productivity was a continuous effort.”

In order to support this process Jeffry developed a structured onboarding program aimed at team building. “I used the Tuckman model to guide the team through the different stages of team building. It was essential that they not only executed their own task well but that they functioned as a unit and they utilized and shared each other’s knowledge and expertise as good as possible.”

While Jeffry is proud that the team achieved the deadline he is even more proud of how they did it. “Despite the time pressure and resistance of some employees we managed to build a strong team that collaborated effectively. The result is not only a successful migration but also the growth of the team that supported each other”.