What Happens After Migration: A Governance Reality Check

Migration is a high-stakes move: not just files, but the entire digital infrastructure of how your organization works.

You moved emails and mailboxes with all their folders and attachments. You moved collaboration spaces like Microsoft Teams channels, chats, and Planner boards. You migrated complex workflows built in Power Automate and custom apps. You transferred identities (user accounts, groups, and permissions) so Bob still has access to Folder X the moment he logs into the new system.

Whether you moved from on-premises servers to the cloud, migrated from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 (or vice versa), or merged two separate tenants after a merger or acquisition, the goal was full-fidelity transfer: everything moved, nothing broken, zero downtime.

The migration itself was a three-phase operation. Discovery scanned your environment to find dark data, massive files, and security risks. The migration phase used incremental syncs to move the bulk of data over weeks, then captured only the changes right before go-live. Monitoring dashboards confirmed what moved, what failed, and that permissions in the new environment matched the old.

So you made it. Migration complete.

Cutover successful. Users are collaborating in the new environment.

Whether you used AvePoint, native platform tools, or another migration provider, the technical move worked. But here’s what most public sector IT teams learn the hard way: migration gets you to a new platform. Governance keeps you there sustainably.

Without an operating model in place, three primary problems tend to emerge: collaboration sprawl grows faster than you can track it, compliance obligations stall between planning and enforcement, and storage costs climb in ways that weren’t in the forecast.

These problems are avoidable if you get ahead of them. And if they’ve already shown up, they’re fixable with the right approach to governance.

The three problems that show up fast

After most migrations, three patterns emerge:

Sprawl wins. New workspaces multiply. Ownership goes unclear. External sharing happens without oversight. You thought you’d have visibility, but now you’re not even sure how many collaboration spaces exist, let alone who owns them or what’s in them.

Compliance stalls. Retention schedules sit in binders while teams work in ways those schedules never anticipated. Legal holds are hard to implement. Public records requests take longer than they should. Disposing of eligible content feels too risky, so nothing gets deleted.

Costs creep. Storage grows faster than expected. By the time finance flags it, you’re hunting for quick fixes that often conflict with the compliance obligations you’re trying to meet.

These aren’t platform problems. They’re operating model problems. And they require an approach that treats governance as a continuous operating rhythm, not a post-project checklist.

What to do instead

We built a guide for public sector teams navigating the post-migration reality. It covers what to prioritize, how to set up governance that scales without expanding central IT forever, and how to make retention implementable in the way people actually collaborate.

It also includes a realistic first 90 days plan, so you’re not building governance from theory, but from a baseline you can measure and improve.

The guide is designed for IT and security leaders, digital workplace owners, and records stakeholders who need to regain control of content, risk, and cost after the move.

Download: Migration Complete. Now What? — A Public Sector Guide for Controlling Sprawl, Cost, and Risk