Most cloud migrations are judged ready by enthusiasm. This one scores the workload instead.

A workload that moves badly rarely fails on the technology. It fails on the things nobody scored beforehand: an undocumented dependency, a secret stored in someone’s notes, a pricing model that looked cheaper until the data started moving, or a team that was never going to have time to run it afterwards.

This scorecard walks one workload through twenty questions across five areas and gives you a readiness score at the end — so the conversation stops being about appetite and starts being about evidence.

What it scores

Workload inventory — what it is, how critical it is, where it runs now, and how complex the architecture actually is
Data and dependencies — what data it handles, how many external dependencies it carries, and how often it exchanges data with other systems
Security and access — how access, privileged accounts, secrets and audit logging are managed today, not how they are supposed to be
Cost and commercials — the estimated spend in the target environment, the current pricing model, and how much budget flexibility actually exists
Team and operations — runbooks, a named service owner, incident procedures, and honest readiness to run it on day two

Score one workload at a time. A single blended score across a whole estate hides exactly the detail that decides whether a migration goes well. If you have three candidates, run it three times and compare.

Take the scorecard

Twenty questions, about eight minutes. You will see your score at the end.

If you are weighing this up more broadly

Migration readiness is one decision inside a bigger one. The IT Modernization Playbook covers how to decide which systems to keep, improve, replace or retire in the first place, and in what order — worth reading before you commit budget to moving anything.

General business guidance only. This scorecard is a planning aid, not professional, legal, financial, security or regulatory advice, and it does not assess compliance with any standard or regulation. Migrations involving personal data, payment data, regulated records or safety-critical operations carry obligations this scoring does not evaluate — take qualified advice on your own circumstances before proceeding.