While it’s impossible to see inside a chess player’s mind, some have said they’re more often thinking just 3 to 7 moves ahead. The key, however, is the way they can accurately evaluate their position and see a wide range of possibilities. As the game unfolds, quick analysis will tell them that some potential moves will lead to better outcomes. That way they can quickly discard less desirable options. How do chess champions get that way? Practice. It’s been estimated that it takes 12,480 hours to become a chess grandmaster.

Dedication. Brain power. And lots of experience. These are also the ingredients necessary to become an IT specialist. Only a minute fraction of all chess players in the world are grandmasters. IT professionals who have mastered a niche but important specialty like data migration are also rare. Yet those are exactly the people you want on your project, because they’re the ones who are able to think several moves ahead. And they have the experience to evaluate the broadest range of possibilities.

Experience leads to better migrations

Depending on the size of your organization, you likely have some very savvy IT professionals who know quite a bit about your environment. But as systems have become increasingly complex, it’s a lot to ask of your in-house team to perform something that occurs as infrequently in most companies as a data migration. It’s simply not worth someone’s time to learn all the ins and outs of migrations when their plate is already full. That’s why many companies choose to hire consultants when there’s a migration on the horizon.

Managed service providers (MSPs) and IT service providers (ITSPs) who frequently perform data migrations know the intricacies of moving everything from email and documents to Teams and archives. Whether you’re moving to the cloud or between tenants, migrations involved a number of strategic moves, including pre-planning, testing, user communications, and post-migration clean-up. An experienced consultant will often save considerable amounts of time because they’re able to assess the project and anticipate the right moves to make sure it’s a success.

Migration Specialists Choose MigrationWiz

IT pros who perform migrations have already tested the leading migration tools. And many choose MigrationWiz. Just as most chess players learn the fundamentals of the game when they’re in elementary school, an IT generalist can quickly come up to speed on MigrationWiz if they need to perform a very simple migration. But those who become familiar with the capabilities through experience are uniquely suited to help IT teams with a unique or more complex migration.

IT consultants approach migrations with the strategic thinking of a chess champion, anticipating potential gotchas they might encounter in their path. More importantly, they have the experience to strategize around any issues to keep the project moving toward success. Of course, unlike a chess player, a migration specialist isn’t playing against an opponent. Still, they may have to deal with challenging governance decisions or odd system configurations. And you’ll appreciate their expertise when it comes time to untangle a hidden data mess. Sometimes it just makes sense to let the pros do the work.

At BitTitan we have relationships with consultants and partners across the globe we can recommend when a project needs added brain power. Contact one of our salespeople to learn how to get help with your migration.