Executive Summary Migrating from one messaging system to another is a time consuming and costly process.
Most organizations underestimate the time and costs it takes to implement messaging migration.
This creates a gap between expectations and reality. This gap between expectations and reality is illustrated below in Figure 1. Users expect that in a short period of time costs will decrease as systems benefits increase and stay constant. Actually, costs will increase for a period of time as benefits decline, before the curve is reversed and costs once again decrease and benefits are realized. As illustrated in the model above, shortening the time between planning and implementation so as to minimize the time during which costs rise and benefits sink will increase benefits and decrease costs more effectively.