Why plan before you migrate 

Across industries, organizations are moving to Power BI to gain more flexibility, accessibility, and value compared to legacy reporting tools. Power BI offers deep integration across Microsoft services, cloud scalability, and lower cost of ownership, but those benefits aren’t automatic.  

Too often, teams treat migration as a lift-and-shift exercise which results in duplicated work, inconsistent data, and frustrated users who go back to spreadsheets.  

Planning before you migrate ensures that Power BI delivers measurable business value, not just a fresh interface. By asking the right questions up front, you can build a foundation for adoption and long-term success.  

1. What are our reporting and business goals? 

Before starting any migration, step back and define what you want to achieve. What decisions should Power BI help your organization make faster or more effective? What business problems should it solve?  

The most successful migrations are guided by a clear vision of value. IT and business stakeholders must align early on shared objectives, such as:  

• Reducing the time, it takes to generate reports 
• Increasing access to consistent, accurate data 
• Improving visibility into KPIs across departments  

When goals are framed around outcomes rather than features, Power BI becomes more than a reporting platform; it becomes an enablement tool that connects data to real business impact.  

2. Which reports and data sources should we migrate first? 

A migration isn’t about moving everything. It’s about moving the right things first.  

Start by identifying your most critical or frequently used reports. These “quick wins” build momentum and justify further investment.  

Before migration perform an audit of your existing reports: 

• Which reports are used most frequently, and which outdated or redundant?  
• Which KPIs are still relevant to the business? 
• Which data sources are required to support them?  

You’ll likely find opportunities to retire unnecessary content and simplify your reporting landscape. This selective approach not only reduces clutter but ensures that Power BI delivers meaningful insights from day one.  

3. How clean and well-modeled is our data? 

Even the most intuitive BI platform can’t fix bad data. Migrating reports that contain inconsistent, inaccurate, or poorly modeled data leads to mistrust and slow adoption.  

Before migrating, take time to profile and standardize your data. Ensure definitions, naming conventions, and relationships are consistent across systems. This often involves establishing or revisiting your data governance framework.  

Consider creating a semantic data model or centralized data layer that serves as a single source of truth for all Power BI reports. This allows business users to build confidently, knowing the data is reliable and accurate. 

You may also want to evaluate performance and scalability by reviewing: 

• Data cleanliness 
• Data refresh frequencies 
• Self-service reporting needs and requirements 

At Green Leaf, we often find that the biggest barrier to a successful Power BI migration isn’t that technology, it’s the data model behind it. Our team helps clients assess data quality and implement governance frameworks that make analytics trustworthy and actionable from day one.  

Data quality and modeling are the cornerstones of trust. Without them, users will question insights and revert to manual workarounds.  

4. Who will manage and govern Power BI long-term? 

Ongoing management is just as important as the initial rollout. Successful Power BI programs have defined ownership and governance to maintain order and ensure compliance.  

Establish clear roles and responsibilities for maintaining datasets, workspaces, and permissions.  

Data protection should also be considered early – including role-based access control and security policies that align with organizational standards.  

Governance doesn’t have to be rigid; it simply ensures consistency and accountability as usage scales. When done right, governance becomes a framework for empowerment, giving users the freedom to explore while keeping data secure and trusted. 

5. How will we drive adoption and training? 

Even the most technically sound migration can fail without adoption. End users need to understand how Power BI helps them in their day-to-day work; otherwise, they’ll default to familiar legacy systems.  

Start by identifying champions who can promote the value of Power BI across teams. Develop an enablement plan that includes hands-on workshops and quick reference guides.  

Create feedback loops to monitor usage and identify where additional support is needed. Usage dashboards can help track engagement and highlight opportunities and expand adoption.  

When embraced by the organization, Power BI shifts from generating reports to driving clarity, speed, and confidence in every decision.   

Conclusion 

Successful Power BI migrations are more about people and processes than technology. 

Whether you’re moving from Excel or a tool such as Cognos, Qliksense, WebFOCUS, etc., thoughtful planning helps you define a roadmap that balances strategy, governance, and adoption.  

Green Leaf helps organizations plan, migrate, and modernize Power BI environments with a strategy-first approach.