Most migration delays are visible weeks before they happen. They hide in object dependencies, late business validation and plans that are not replanned after each mock.
When an SAP S/4HANA go-live is postponed, data migration is rarely the only cause - but it is almost always on the list. After many mock cycles across multiple countries, the pattern is consistent: the delay was visible weeks earlier, in places the status report did not look.
1. Dependencies are managed in people's heads
Business partners must be loaded before open items; materials before purchasing info records; plants and storage locations before stock. A migration plan that lists objects without modelling these dependencies cannot show a critical path. The first time the program sees it is when a load fails at 2 a.m. during a mock.
What to do: model precedence and blocking relationships explicitly for every object, and recalculate the critical path each time an object changes status.
2. Validation is treated as a phase, not a gate
Pre-load validation that happens "when there is time" becomes post-load firefighting. Each object needs a defined readiness gate - mapping approved, cleansing complete, pre-load checks passed, business owner sign-off - before it is allowed into the load window.
3. The plan is not replanned after each mock
A mock cycle produces the most valuable data the program will ever have: real durations, real error rates, real bottlenecks. Programs that keep the original plan after Mock 1 are planning with fiction. Replan after every cycle, and keep the history of what changed and why.
4. Sign-off evidence is scattered
Go/no-go decisions need evidence: reconciliation results, open defects, approved-with-restrictions items and their owners. When this evidence lives across spreadsheets and e-mail threads, the decision becomes a negotiation instead of a review.
The common thread
Each of these is a governance problem, not a technical one. That is why JBE combines migration leadership with MigrationFlow, a platform built to make dependencies, stage gates, KPIs and approvals explicit - so the delay is visible while there is still time to act.