FREE Cloud Migration Plan Template (Gantt Chart)

Why use our Cloud Migration Plan Template instead of Excel or Google Sheets?

Get started with our Cloud Migration Plan Template in seconds while skipping the hassle involved with Excel or Google Sheets.

Build Gantt charts in minutes, not hours.

No project management experience? No problem. Tom's Planner offers a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface that's intuitive and easy to learn. Creating Gantt charts is a breeze, saving you time and effort. Compare that to the time-consuming, frustrating, manual formatting-intensive process of building a Gantt chart in Excel or Google Sheets.

Create a Gantt chart in minutes, not hours

Move at the pace of modern business with no learning curve or Googling formulas.

Good luck figuring out how to make a Gantt chart work in Excel or Google Sheets. Excel’s user manual weighs in at a hefty 500+ pages. It takes just five minutes with Tom’s Planner to start planning your first real project plan.

Headache-free collaboration and sharing.

Tom's Planner offers powerful options for sharing and collaborating on Gantt charts, including public links, PDF exports, and team access with customizable permission levels. It’s never been easier to communicate or ensure everyone’s on the same page. Compare that to Excel, where sharing and collaboration mean jumping through hoop after hoop and dealing with confusion and chaos.

How to use Tom’s Planner’s cloud migration plan template to build and share your cloud migration project.

Getting your project off the ground is as easy as 1-2-3.

Step #1

Click the 'start with template’ button to open the Cloud Migration Plan Template.

Step #2

Register for a free account and watch a short video on using Tom’s Planner. The account is free forever, with no strings attached.

Step #3

You’re all set to use the Gantt chart template. Need additional help? Our AI assistant can create a custom Gantt chart Cloud Migration Plan Template based on your project description.

Start with template

What is a cloud migration plan template?

About to embark on a cloud migration? It can free your data, liberate it from silos, and make it more accessible. It can also help you reduce your IT costs and much more. Of course, migrating to the cloud isn’t a simple process. It requires a detailed plan, plenty of expertise, and the right tools.

A cloud migration plan template is an essential ingredient to success. This is a document that allows you to plan your migration in detail, share important elements with stakeholders, and understand tasks and dependencies.

However, don’t think you can get by using a cloud migration checklist in Excel. You’ll need something more robust. A cloud migration plan Gantt chart delivers the flexibility and planning capabilities you need.

What does a cloud migration plan Gant chart offer?

While you can do a lot with spreadsheets like Excel and Google Sheets, a Gantt chart is much better suited to the complexities of migrating to the cloud. With a tool like Tom’s Planner, you can set custom milestones, define your project’s objectives, and establish deliverables.

It becomes possible to assign tasks, identify dependencies between tasks and subtasks, allocate and manage resources, and monitor progress on the project. Plus, you can easily share relevant tasks, deadlines, resource-related information, and other details with anyone who needs that information.

In short, a cloud migration plan template like Tom’s Planner can help reduce time, increase accuracy, and help you avoid problems in your migration.

When to use a cloud migration plan template

When should you use a cloud migration plan Gantt chart? Here are some of the most important times:

Planning Phase:

Arguably, the most important part of any cloud migration process is the planning that goes into it. Without accurate planning, too many things can go wrong. Using a tool like Tom’s Planner allows you to create a custom timeline, assign tasks to teams and team members, define success metrics, and more.

Resource Allocation:

Resource allocation is critical to a successful cloud migration. You’ll need to allocate things like labor and equipment, as well as bandwidth and more. Use a cloud migration plan template to identify resources and then allocate and manage them in real-time throughout the project during reviews.

During the Project:

Your cloud migration plan template is a living document. Cloud migrations are dynamic, and you need a strategy that’s flexible enough to evolve as the project does. Frequent check-ins and reviews can help ensure that you’re able to adapt as the project changes and increase the likelihood of a successful migration.

Who should use a cloud migration plan template?

While a cloud migration plan template will play a central role in all aspects of your project, it’s also important to know who might need access to it. Some of the most common users include:

Project Managers:

Project managers and other stakeholders should use the cloud migration plan template to plan the migration, as well as for other needs, such as resource allocation and task assignment.

IT Teams:

In most cases, the IT team will be tasked with the bulk of the work involved in migrating to the cloud. The team can use a cloud migration plan Gantt chart to understand tasks and dependencies, track key deadlines, and ensure they reach important milestones.

Cloud Host:

In some cases, those outside your organization may need access to at least some of the information contained in your cloud migration plan, such as the host that will hold your data.

Understand who will need access to the cloud migration plan and then share important details with them ahead of the project.

Start with template

The top three pitfalls to avoid when planning a cloud migration

Delivering a successful cloud migration is crucial, and avoiding these three pitfalls will help:

Failing to Plan a Cloud Migration Strategy
It’s important to start with a cloud migration plan. Without one, you’ll waste time, energy, and resources, and likely need to step back to regroup, meaning that you’ll miss key deadlines and milestones.
Solution:
Make sure you have a rock-solid cloud migration plan before doing anything else.
Using the Wrong People
Migrating to the cloud requires experience and expertise. Using the wrong people could mean delays and setbacks, or even data-related disasters during the project.
Solution:
Only task specialists with a deep understanding of cloud migration for this project.
Failure to Get Employee Buy-In First
Eventually, the data migration will affect all employees. However, if you don’t get buy-in first, it can create friction and resistance to change.
Solution:
Get your people on board with the migration early during the planning stages.

A cloud migration plan Gantt chart like Tom’s Planner is ideally suited for helping you avoid these pitfalls and enjoy a successful migration to the cloud.

What does a cloud migration plan template include?

Every cloud migration project is different, but each template will include several common elements. Some of the most commonly used include:

Scope:
What’s the project’s scope? Several factors will affect this, including the volume of data that must be migrated, the architecture you’re using, the organization of data within the cloud, and industry and governmental rules and regulations that might apply, such as HIPAA.
Timeline:
What’s your timeline for completion? What about major milestones and deadlines along that timeline? An accurate timeline helps keep your team engaged and informed.
Project Team:
Who’s handling the cloud migration? It’s important to identify each team member’s responsibilities within the larger project, as well as the tasks and subtasks assigned to them.
Project Resources:
A cloud migration project requires resources. Identify resources and allocate them using your cloud migration plan template.
Server Consolidation Plan:
One of the primary benefits of migrating to the cloud is that you can reduce your in-house IT footprint. Identify which servers will be consolidated and create a plan to achieve that goal within the larger project.

Using a cloud migration plan template like Tom’s Planner can help you balance these elements and many others, including handling the data migration process itself.

Four tips on how to make sure you reach your deadlines

1. Plan the Right Type of Cloud Migration

While cloud migration is all the rage, not all migrations are the same. Make sure you know which type fits your organization better (hybrid, cloud-to-cloud, multi-cloud, or complete data center migration) and plan for it from the very beginning. Each type requires specific planning steps. Tom’s Planner can help you plan effectively throughout the migration project.

2. Implement the Right Strategy

Cloud migration strategies vary just as much as the types of migration. Rehosting, re-platforming, refactoring, repurchasing, and retiring are all valid strategies but they’re not the same.

3. Plan for Bottlenecks

Performance bottlenecks are common during cloud migrations. This is particularly true as you’re validating resources during testing. Plan for this so you can adjust your strategy and timeline.

4. Don’t Depend on Single Providers

Depending on a single cloud technology provider can lead to vendor lock-in, which is never a good thing. Place workloads across different cloud providers to avoid being locked into one ecosystem and the delays and challenges that can come with that.

Gantt charts in Tom's Planner vs in Excel

	Excel	Tom's Planner
Cost	License required	Free version available
Learning curve	Hours	Minutes
Create your first Gantt chart	Hours	Minutes
Making an update in your chart	Several minutes	Seconds (drag & drop)
Sharing charts with others	At some point you will save and email a file titled: version_4_def_usethisversion_reallyfinal.xlsx	Online, one source of truth, always up to date, with no confusion
Look & Feel	Messy	Clean, polished and professional
Dependencies
Filtering
Zoom in/out
Automatic Legend
AI-assist		Let our AI assist do the work for you
Export to image or pdf	Requires workarounds to export	One mouse click

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