Lessons learned from Munich's migration to Linux

<p>

I attended LinuxTag in Berlin last week and there was a very interesting
presentation about the state of Munich's migration to Linux on the
desktop.  Andreas Heinrich explained that their goal is to migrate 80%
of the 15000 desktops to Linux.  At the moment, 6200 desktops have been
migrated and they intend to have a total of 8500 Linux desktops by the
end of the year.

</p>

<p>

Here are some of the key lessons they shared with the audience:

</p>

<ul>

<li>Technical activities and requirements are easy to manage but managing
social factors of change is hard since all change is associated with fear.
They have specific people who are responsible for change management and for
communication.  For example, they organize events to share information and
provide training.  They also give away CDs so that employees can use the
software at home.</li>

<li>Make sure the new system is accepted: if users don't like the system
(for whatever reason), their boss and other employees will know immediately
since "bad news travels fast".  Make sure that user needs are met: they
talk a lot to their users to find our what their needs are and how to meet
them.</li>

<li>Don't make a "big bang" migration: instead of migrating everyone at the
same time, they prefer gradual change.  They started with some users, saw
what worked and what didn't and then used that knowledge to improve their
migration process.</li>

<li>Don't migrate everyone: their aim is to convert 80% of desktops to
Linux.  There are some users who have specific needs for which only
proprietary solutions exist.  If Linux and open source offers no solution,
it doesn't make sense to migrate those users.</li>

<li>Don't go with dual-boot: if open source meets the needs of your users,
there's no reason to provide an alternative.  On the other hand, if open
source does not meet their needs, don't attempt a migration.</li>

<li>Continuous improvement: after making a new release of their software
or migrating users, don't consider the migration as complete.  Instead,
see how you can further improve the user experience.</li>

</ul>

<p>

It seems that the city of Munich has learned a lot from their Linux
migration.  We can hope that other Linux migrations will make use of
the lessons learned by the folks in Munich.

</p>

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