You Only Migrate Once—so why not make it count? A successful Power BI migration isn’t just about moving platforms; it’s an opportunity to reset your BI landscape, integrate advanced AI/ML features, and deliver a user experience that drives better decisions. However, with 40% of migrations failing, the risks of delays, budget overruns, and business setbacks are very real. That’s why planning and execution are critical. This guide will walk you through the top 10 challenges to avoid and how to navigate them successfully.
1. Inadequate Planning
Power BI migration involves multiple teams, stakeholders, and technical components, making it highly susceptible to delays and misalignment without careful planning. Overlooking risks, dependencies, or limitations during the planning phase often leads to project overruns and unmet expectations. Skipping pilot projects compounds these risks, as pilots are essential for uncovering unforeseen challenges, validating performance, usability, and ROI, and establishing a reliable baseline for scaling.
2. Migrating Unnecessary Content
When organizations opt for an “as-is” migration, they often transfer all existing reports and dashboards to the new platform without evaluating their relevance. This results in the migration of unused, outdated, or redundant reports, which adds unnecessary complexity to the new environment. Such clutter not only increases storage and operational costs but also makes the environment challenging to manage and navigate.
3. Poor Performance Post-Migration
Migrated systems can encounter performance bottlenecks due to poorly optimized data models, complex metrics, or inefficient queries. These issues often result in longer refresh times, inaccurate calculations, and overall dissatisfaction among end-users. Ignoring performance considerations during migration planning can derail the user experience and increase post-migration troubleshooting efforts.
These are just a few of the many challenges you will encounter. Download our complete guide to get a comprehensive list of challenges and mitigation strategies covering planning, rationalization, capacity management, user adoption, change management, and so much more.
