Frame a content migration evaluation

A content migration deal starts with a big number and a bigger deadline, and both numbers are usually wrong. The dean or provost who calls you wants every course moved to the new system before a semester starts. Your job is to slow that down without sounding like you are stalling, and to turn a raw course count into an actual project the institution can staff and finish.

Why this conversation goes wrong

When a school buys a new learning platform, the first question anyone asks is how fast the old content can move. That question hides three separate problems. Nobody has confirmed which courses are still active, nobody has assigned an owner to approve what counts as ready for the new environment, and nobody has looked at whether files need review for accessibility or instructional quality before they transfer. If you agree to a single migration date before those three things are settled, you inherit all three problems the day the contract is signed.

The pressure to agree comes from the buyer's side, not yours. A dean under a deadline wants a number, not a process. If you give a firm date without checking what is actually inside those 1,200 course shells, you set an expectation you cannot control. Old assignments, outdated syllabi, and documents that never met accessibility standards do not disappear because a vendor promised a deadline. They surface later, usually during the semester you promised would be smooth.

How to prepare before the call

Before you get on a call about migration scope, find out three things. Find out how many courses in the old system have had any student activity in the last year, because a shell count and an active course count are rarely the same number. Find out who owns the decision about what gets rebuilt versus what gets archived, since that is usually split between faculty, instructional design staff, and records or compliance staff. Find out whether the disability services team has flagged any concerns about existing course materials, because accessibility review can add weeks to a project that looked simple on paper.

You also want a proposal ready before the call, not after it. Bring the idea of a sample migration, a small set of courses pulled from different departments that gets reviewed end to end. A sample shows the institution what the real work looks like, including how long review takes and who needs to sign off, before anyone commits to a date for the full catalog. Walking in with this idea, rather than improvising it under pressure, keeps you from agreeing to something you will regret.

What to say

Dean Rosa opens with the number everyone fears. Rosa says, "We have twelve hundred courses in the old system. Can your team move everything before summer." Account executive Devon does not answer the date question first. Devon says, "Before we talk about a date, I want to understand what actually needs to move. How many of those twelve hundred courses are scheduled to run again this fall."

Rosa does not know the exact figure but guesses that a large share of the shells have not been touched in years. Devon follows up. Devon says, "That matters a lot. Do your faculty want old material preserved as it is, or would they rather rebuild the course for how they teach it now." Rosa mentions that the disability services office has also raised concerns about old documents that were never checked for accessibility.

Devon responds without promising a date. Devon says, "A technical import can move files quickly, but content owners still need to check structure and accessibility before students see that material again. Let us pick a small sample, maybe fifteen or twenty courses across a few departments, and run it through faculty, instructional design, and disability services together. That will tell us how long a full migration actually takes, and it will tell your team what to prioritize first." Rosa agrees to pull a sample list by the end of the week.

Devon closes the call by naming the next three things that need to happen, a sample set, an inventory owner on the institution's side, and a date to review results together. Devon avoids turning a course count into a completion promise, and leaves the meeting with a process the institution can actually run.

Mistakes to avoid

Do not accept the number the buyer gives you as the real scope. A course count from an old learning management system almost always includes shells nobody uses, duplicate sections, and material from instructors who left years ago. Treat the number as a starting point for questions, not a project plan.

Do not let the deadline set the workflow. If a dean wants everything done before summer, that pressure is real, but agreeing to it before you know what needs review sets up a failure you will own later. Say plainly that a full migration without a review step risks moving broken links, outdated documents, and inaccessible files straight into the new system.

Do not skip disability services or instructional design in your early conversations. Account executives sometimes deal only with IT or the dean's office because those are the easiest contacts to reach. That approach misses the two groups most likely to slow down or block a migration once it starts, and you find out about their concerns only after the contract is signed.

Do not write a recap that repeats the buyer's language back without adding the review step. A recap that says migrate all courses by summer, with no mention of a sample, an owner, or a review process, sets a written expectation that will get quoted back to you later.

How to practice and score this conversation

Run this scenario with a partner who plays a dean fixated on one date and one number. Have that partner resist your first two attempts to ask about active courses and approval owners, the way a real prospect under deadline pressure will. Your job is to hold the line calmly, without sounding evasive, until you get a real answer about scope.

After the roleplay, write the recap you would actually send. Check whether it names a sample set, names who reviews it, and names a date to reconvene, rather than repeating a full migration promise. Read the recap aloud. If it sounds like an assumed project scope rather than a decision process, rewrite it.

A manager scoring this conversation should check for three things, whether you asked about active course counts before quoting effort, whether you named specific stakeholders beyond the person on the call, and whether your recap avoided a hard completion date for the full catalog. DealSpeak's Education practice conversations let you rehearse this exact scenario with an AI counterpart that plays a dean under deadline pressure, and score your recap against the same three checks. The scenario pairs well with practice on how to Discuss a possible course load changesince both conversations depend on separating a stated request from the real scope behind it.

A migration deal succeeds or fails on the questions you ask before anyone signs anything. Slow the number down, name the reviewers, and let the sample do the talking. That is how a twelve hundred course request turns into a project the institution can actually finish.