The approach for the Migration Design depends upon the chosen Migration Strategy, and must take into account the Migration Requirements And Constraints.

In some cases the Migration Design process includes considering several migration scenarios. The scenario definitions help to understand the complex transition dependencies from a more holistic point of view. They are defined in order to facilitate the choice of the best possible migration approach in the given circumstances.

If an Optimised Cost / Benefit is important, then work on the Benefits logic is started in an early stage, in order to provide evidence for the design decisions. If at the other hand Low implementation risk or a Fixed implementation date are important, then the focus is more on an early design for one or more stages within the engagement.

When the overall migration approach is clear (e.g. scenario is chosen), this activity creates a starting point for the detailed migration design in the form of a draft design of the overall migration, including a definition of each individual Implementation Stage in the migration. Then the activity takes care that in an iterative process activities 4.5 till 4.8 are executed until the Migration Design has reached the proper level of detail at the proper level of quality.