Moving systems to the cloud fails when nobody agrees what data moves, what each field means, or when the team is allowed to stop. This data migration plan template sets those decisions out in twelve slides: why the move is needed, the approach in four steps, the migration in three waves, costs, risks and a timeline with go or no-go gates. Each slide is written for IT leaders and their data owners, so the sponsor can see scope and criteria first.

The sample is for Oakhaven Cloud, a fictional company moving 42 million records across three waves over about four months. It shows duplicates falling from 3.1% to under 0.1% before any load, trial loads at 10%, 50% and full volume reconciled to 0.01%, and a budget of £140k. Replace the systems, field rules, thresholds and cutover hours with your own, and keep the gates that stop a move if a check fails.