Engagement Manager and Architect Guide

Table of Contents

1Introduction

1.1Purpose

1.2Audience

1.3Engagement Overview

2Engagement Scoping

2.1Scoping

2.2Cost Estimates and Projections

3Pre-Engagement Guidance

3.1Customer Preparation

3.1.1Designating a Point of Contact

3.1.2Obtaining Change Control Approvals

3.1.3Environmental Prerequisites

3.2Engagement Team Preparation

4Staffing Guidance

4.1Purpose

4.2Staffing Guidance

4.2.1Resource Requests

4.2.2Staffing Model

4.3Required Competences, Skills and Capabilities

4.3.1Required Technical Competencies

4.3.2Purpose

5Engagement Guidance

5.1Risk Assessment

5.2Change Management

5.3Release Management

5.4Scheduling Constraints

5.5Project Phases

5.6Community Contribution and Engagement IP

1Introduction

The goal of the Data Migration Assessment Jump Start is to help customers assess as subset of their storage infrastructure to determine what data can be migrated to an existing StorSimple appliance in their datacenter and from there to Microsoft Azure storage. Simply deploying StorSimple (assumed to have already been performed by the customer or Microsoft through a separate Jump Start called StorSimple Planning and Deployment) does not in and of itself enable the benefits of cloud-integrated storage (such as cost savings, “unlimited” capacity, etc.). Those benefits can only be realized once a sizeable amount of the customer’s data has been migrated to the StorSimple appliance. That is the purpose of the Data Migration Assessment Jump Start – to identity and recommend the data to migrate.

1.1Purpose

The purpose of this Engagement Manager Guide is to provide concise yet important guidance on planning and delivering the Data Migration Assessment Jump Start. This guide provides key information on the project setup, resource requirements, project team composition and some key aspects of the engagement organization utilizing Microsoft Solution Framework. The Engagement Manager and Architect Guide is an integral part of the Data Migration Assessment Jump Start and should be used in conjunction with the remaining Offering documentation. While we recognize that every customer, resource and project is unique, we are publishing this document is order to support consistent, standardized and optimal delivery of Data Migration Assessment engagements.

In order to facilitate the application of the full set of Offering materials, this Engagement Manager and Architect Guide presents a simple engagement framework, summarizing key challenges, prerequisites and aspects of the project. Detailed guidance and step-by-step processes for delivery can be found throughout the Data Migration Assessment Jump Start documentation package.

1.2Audience

This document was written to benefit the any Microsoft Services personnel assigned to envision, plan, design, build and implement the Data Migration Assessment Jump Start. In particular, document is aimed to Engagement Managers, Project Managers and Architects involved with Data Migration Assessment engagement. Although many of the steps in this document pertain especially to the Project Manager (PM) role, the provided summary can be used to initiate, support, and promote a more productive collaboration among the individual resources involved in the engagement.

1.3Engagement Overview

TheData Migration Assessment Jump Start is a one week engagement with a single delivery consultant to assess up to Ten (10) Windows file servers and up to 160TB of attached storage to identify data recommended for migration to StorSimple and Microsoft Azure storage

2Engagement Scoping

2.1Scoping

A critical component for helping make sure that the engagement will be successful is proper engagement scoping so that the fixed scope nature of the Data Migration Assessment Jump Start matches customer expectations. The ideal way to accomplish this is to have main roles (architects and consultants) that will be performing the delivery assist the Engagement or Project Manager while scoping the initial engagement and determining whether the one week assessment matches the customer requirements. This will help to build relationships between key delivery stakeholders and the customer, while reducing the time it takes to get the team knowledgeable enough for the engagement to start.

Scoping the Data Migration Assessment Jump Start entails pre-sales dialog with the customer, and potentially a pre-sales delivery of the Data Migration Assessment Customer Presentation for scoping and planning.

IMPORTANT: The Statement of Work (SOW) and Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) that are included with the Data Migration Assessment Jump Start is for a limited scope, production engagement. The SOW and WBS can be used as a starting point for a larger or more complex engagement. It is critical to NOT position the Jump Start scope as a full production assessment (or migration) of a customer’s complete storage environment but to use the scope advice presented here to structure a proper engagement.

Key scoping topics include:

Has the customer completed a StorSimple deployment (either on their own, or through the File Sharing and Archiving using StorSimple Jump Start)?
Is the current StorSimple deployment functioning and attached to Microsoft Azure storage?
Has the customer been presented with the Data Migration Assessment Jump Start Customer Presentation during the pre-sales process to explain the engagement?
Does the customer understand the assessment-only nature of the engagement and that any migration of data is out of scope of this Jump Start?
Does the customer understand the limited nature of the default engagement (assessment of up to 10 Windows file servers and attached storage up to 160TB)?

IMPORTANT: It is highly recommended that an experienced architect assist in the pre-sales process to assess customer requirements and scope the specifics of the engagement.

2.2Cost Estimates and Projections

The Data Migration Assessment Jump Start is a fixed scope engagement consisting of either two weeks of consulting work and associated project/engagement management.

3Pre-Engagement Guidance

3.1Customer Preparation

Regardless of the customer’s profile, it is the role of engaged Architect/Consultant to gather enough accurate information about the customer’s business and functional requirements, IT environment and IT operational practices to envision, plan, build and deploy the Data Migration Assessment and optional migration scenario.

The Data Migration Assessment Jump Start Offering documentation package includes the pre-engagement assessment questionnaire that should be reviewed and completed with the customer before the engagement begins (before the kick-off meeting). The purpose of the questionnaire is to give the incoming resources a glimpse into the maturity and health of the customer’s operational environment and allow them to accurately assess the exact scope of the engagement. Although no questionnaire can fully define the specifics of every customer environment, an Architect/Consultant should be able to review the material that is provided and initiate the engagement with an accurate understanding of the related IT environment.

Because the questionnaire is comprehensive, some customers may be reluctant to invest the effort that is required to complete it. In order to mitigate this unwillingness:

Encourage the customer to complete as much as possible, and to understand that the material is required for a successful engagement delivery. Otherwise, the engaged resources will be pursuing the missing information before, or—even worse—instead of performing other tasks.
Emphasize the understanding that not all information is relevant to every customer. Recommend using the answer “Not applicable” if information is not available or is confidential. Such action is valuable than leaving it blank.
Emphasize that inaccurate or incomplete questionnaire can lead to engagement delays and risk successful engagement completion
Indicate that, in some cases, the questionnaire can prevent an unprepared customer from investing in an expensive engagement if the enterprise requires significant dependent-infrastructure modifications.

Please refer to the Pre-Engagement Questionnaire document for additional details.

3.1.1Designating a Point of Contact

It is imperative that the engagement delivery team and customer establish appropriate communication channels. Ideally this should be completed through a Single Point of Contact (SPoC) assigned at the customer side (usually Project Manager and IT Architect). SPoC should have a thorough understanding of the enterprise and its IT function and be able to provide adequate levels of customer engagement throughout the engagement.

Assigned SPoC should demonstrate following attributes and capabilities:

Knowledge of the enterprise, with contacts in the various affected areas (infrastructure, system management, application management, service management, architecture function etc.) and the ability to work closely with these contacts to achieve objectives on a timely basis
Authority to drive participation of reluctant business units.
Project influence across multiple business groups and at the project sponsor level (business and IT management), allowing him/her adequate escalation capability and an ability to drive greater project visibility.
Obtaining Change Control Approvals

If the customer’s operational procedures do not feature a rapid change control process, it is strongly advised that the engagement team initiates the change approval process as early as possible through submission of the following requests:

Approval for copying the assessment script and running it on each in scope file servers
Approval to execute the data collection script either during business hours or overnight

3.1.3Environmental Prerequisites

Assumptions and pre-requisites have been captured in the Data Migration Assessment Jump Start SOW.

3.2Engagement Team Preparation

The measure of success for an engagement is not based entirely on the quality of the delivered components. Often, the customer’s perception plays a major role in whether a particular engagement is considered successful. Therefore, it is important to continuously monitor and manage this perception while delivering a high-quality engagement. In order to address these challenges:

Ensure that the selected delivery resource has the appropriate knowledge and experience to deliver the Data Migration Assessment engagement. The skill sets required include:
Depth and experience with Windows Server file services (file server role, distributed file system (DFS), SMB, NTFS)
Depth and experience with PowerShell and Excel
Have each team member download and install the entire Data Migration Assessment Jump Start documentation package. The unified and standardized documentation package (and templates) will form a core of the project’s deliverables. Note that:
Maintaining a consistent theme will make it easier to reuse any existing intellectual property (IP) that is external to this Solution, thus making it easier to maintain standard customer documents and requests.
Using the templates will allow any material that is customized by the engaged resources to be quickly integrated into future solutions.
When the engagement’s team selection is final, initiate a team conference call to introduce the team members and set the engagement expectations. At this time:
Ensure that the delivery consultant has access to the appropriate status report template and that they understand both the expected level of detail for the status reports and the proper process for risk reporting and problem escalation.
If necessary, discuss the current customer environment and acceptable expenses and provide written logistics for the customer facilities.
Discuss and set the Conditions of Satisfaction (CoS) with the customer and refer to that list as often as necessary during the engagement delivery. Be aware that:
If any customer decisions or engagement issues arise that affect these conditions, the customer must be notified and the list of engagement risks updated.
A Risk register is a critical component that must be maintained throughout the project. Issues, risks, and decisions need to be documented in detail and should include a description of each issue, the dates that pertain to the issue and the names of the involved resources. As the engagement progresses, this document will act as the core component if the CoS list is challenged.
You should provide an outlet for customer concerns through e-mail, phone, or personal contact. At key milestones, remind the customer of these outlets.
Review the engagement activities with team members. To do so:
Arrange meetings for the incoming consultant. Be sure to contact the proper resources to arrange for meeting rooms.
Realize that every consultant requires time to become accustomed to a customer environment.
Understand that purpose of this review is to answer the inevitable question: where do I start?
Review the customer pre-engagement questionnaire with the consultant to identify gaps and create a list of follow-up questions and actions. The Project Manager needs to pursue these gaps and questions while the team addresses technical challenges and assignments.

4Staffing Guidance

This section outlines the Data Migration Assessment Jump Start engagement project staffing, with particular focus on adequate competences and skills of the delivery resource. The engagement, whether the one week assessment or three week assessment plus migration scope is selected is performed by a single delivery consultant.

4.1Purpose

The purpose of this guidance for the Offering is to:

Define the competence requirements (both technical and non-technical) for the delivery resources who will be delivering the Solution. Matching the required competence profile:
Enables the consultant to integrate the required skills into their readiness and professional development plans.
Enables the Engagement and/or Project Manager to request the correct and assign adequate resources during engagement staffing.
Resource owners and Resource Managers of consulting/engineering practices/entities to identify the resources aligned with competence profile and thus plan capacity.
Build the readiness plan in order to:
Ensure adequate competence and capabilities of the delivery resources.
Provide the Resource owners and/or Resource managers consulting/engineering practices/entities with adequate insight regarding readiness planning and competence development investments.
Provide Engagement Managers and/or Project Manager with guidance on how to qualify the resources that they need for delivering this Datacenter Management engagements.
Staffing Guidance

This section describes the engagement characteristics that affect resource requests. It also describes the roles and responsibilities of the delivery resources. Individual follow-up scenario staffing guidance will be provided in the accompanying scenario Offering materials and will not be covered in this document.

4.2.1Resource Requests

After an engagement has been confirmed with the customer or partner through a signed work order, a resource request must be submitted to the relevant Resource Manager. The Resource Manager will provide the delivery team (Architects, Consultants, vendor consultants) to fulfill the engagement need.

4.2.2Staffing Model

A customer representative and Microsoft resource must be in close contact throughout the engagement to help make sure that the customer’s needs are being met and that the project is progressing as scheduled.

Project management activities for a Data Migration Assessment Jump Startengagement will not require a dedicated PM role. The engagement is structured to utilize part time project/engagement management and one full time delivery consultant for either one week or three weeks depending on which scenario is in scope.

4.3Required Competences, Skills and Capabilities

To help make sure a project’s success, both technical and non-technical skills are required to address the different items of an engagement. The assigned delivery resource must be capable of addressing all architectural and technical aspects of the project while utilizing their non-technical skills to secure high customer satisfaction and successful project completion. In addition, all resources should have soft skills to facilitate the project’s success.

4.3.1Required Technical Competencies

The following technology competences and capabilities are required to successfully deliver a Data Migration Assessment Jump Start engagement and include:

Depth and experience with Windows Server file services (file server role, distributed file system (DFS), SMB, NTFS)
Depth and experience with PowerShell and Excel

Additional detailed guidance on technical competencies, assessment process, and tools is included in the associated Consultant Delivery Guide.

4.3.2Purpose

TheData Migration Assessment Jump Start will require typical soft-skills capabilities of the delivery resource due to “high-touch” nature of the project and an integral requirement to work across multiple groups and functions within customer’s ecosystem. Skills required include:

Strong communication skills
Ability to work as the only Microsoft resource engaged at the customer
Ability to quickly learn updated skills and apply them in running engagement
Ability to adapt communication and working style to accommodate various customer cultures
Assertiveness and an ability to clearly communicate and support project goals and deliverables
Advanced problem solving ability
Task prioritization and strong time management capability

All other key non-technical capabilities are defined in the Microsoft’s internal consulting/architect Career Stage Profiles (

5Engagement Guidance

5.1Risk Assessment

Risk is an integral part of any IT project. The recommended way to deal with engagement risks is to identify them in a risk register as soon as they become apparent and highlight them in weekly status reports. Establish which customer employees have the authority to address the following question: “What is an acceptable risk for the organization?” After the level of risk has been agreed upon, mitigation strategies can be established.

For further guidance on risk assessment, reporting, planning, and mitigation, please consult the risk register document template “Risk Register Template” within Datacenter Management Offering documentation package.

5.2Change Management

During the course of a large project, changes in scope will inevitably occur as overlooked items become apparent. The changes must be prioritized so that they do not delay the critical path but conclude in a timely fashion, without affecting the originally planned work. A change request must be submitted for each required change. The request needs to include both the cost and the proposed resources’ requirements and should be reflected through subsequent update of the project’s Statement of Work document. Also, note that every unforeseen change brings additional risk. Reflecting these changes in the project’s Risk Register is highly recommended.