New Article: 5 Reasons to Attend - 4 Pillars of Project Online to Be Aware of When Migrating
Resource Article: Why Platform Migrations Fail (And How to Land Yours Successfully)
Lesson Spotlight: Mastering Your Move - Planning for a Successful Migration from Project Online
Live Event (6/3): 4 Pillars of Project Online to Be Aware of When Migrating
PM Best Practice: Start Your Migration with a Data Inventory, Not a Timeline
Tuesday Brief: The September 30 Project Online shutdown is now less than four months away. If your organization is still running on Project Online, the window for a well-planned migration is closing fast. This week's Brief is a migration toolkit: Erik van Hurck previews the enterprise framework he'll walk through live on Wednesday, we revisit the change management side of platform transitions, and MPUG members can revisit Ira Brown's breakdown of the four realistic migration paths.
New Article:5 Reasons to Attend - 4 Pillars of Project Online to Be Aware of When Migrating
Erik van Hurck and his team at Context& have migrated dozens of enterprises off Project Online, and the patterns they've seen are consistent: migrations look simple on paper and unravel in practice. In this preview of Wednesday's live session, Erik breaks down the four pillars that separate clean migrations from costly ones, from scoping and stakeholder alignment all the way through data prep, execution, and the rollout work that happens after the technical migration is done.
If your organization is facing the September deadline, this is the article to read before Wednesday's session.
Resource Article: Why Platform Migrations Fail (And How to Land Yours Successfully)
Most platform migrations don't fail because of the technology. They fail because of weak adoption, vague communication, and governance that never gets updated for the new tool. This article lays out the five patterns that derail enterprise migrations and maps out a practical response grounded in Kotter's and Prosci's change models, adapted specifically for PMOs. It pairs well with Erik's more technical framework: he covers the structural what, this covers the organizational why it goes wrong.
Lesson Spotlight: Mastering Your Move - Planning for a Successful Migration from Project Online
For MPUG members looking to go deeper, Ira Brown's on-demand master class walks through the four realistic migration paths available to organizations leaving Project Online: Project Server Subscription Edition, Planner Premium, Smartsheet, and standalone Microsoft Project. Ira covers the key factors for evaluating each destination platform, common challenges that derail tool migrations, and a practical planning framework for executing a successful move. A strong companion to this week's content if you want the full picture before choosing a direction.
Live Event (6/3): 4 Pillars of Project Online to Be Aware of When Migrating
Erik van Hurck, Senior xPM Consultant and Microsoft MVP at Context&, shares lessons learned from migrating large enterprises off Project Online. This session is structured around four pillars that give you a repeatable framework for assessing readiness, anticipating risk, and landing a migration that actually sticks.
What You'll Learn:
How to scope a Project Online migration and align stakeholders early to prevent costly rework
Why data preparation matters more than tooling, and what "clean enough" actually looks like
What tends to go wrong during the data migration itself, and how to avoid the most common pitfalls
Why a technically successful migration can still fail without a deliberate rollout and adoption plan
🗓️ Wednesday, June 3, 2026 🕛 12:00 – 1:00 PM ET 📍 Live on Zoom 🏅 1 PDU (1 Business Acumen)
MPUG hosts live events with leading experts on Wednesdays from 12:00pm - 1:00pm ET! MPUG members get access to live events where you get direct access to industry leaders, actionable insights, hands-on training, and opportunities to earn PDUs.
PM Best Practice: Start Your Migration with a Data Inventory, Not a Timeline
Before you build a migration schedule, catalog what you're actually moving. List every active project, custom field, workflow, integration, and report in your current environment. Flag what's critical, what's outdated, and what no one has touched in six months. Organizations that skip this step end up migrating clutter alongside essential data, which inflates scope and creates noise in the new platform. A clean inventory forces hard conversations about what to keep, what to archive, and what to leave behind.
