One of the biggest mistakes I see in Cognos upgrade projects is assuming the upgrade starts with the installation.

It doesn’t.

In fact, by the time you’re carrying out the installation, most of the important work should have already be done.

I’ve spoken to organisations that view a Cognos upgrade as a technical exercise:

Download the software.
Run the installer.
Click next, next, next.
Complete a few tests.
Go live.

The reality is very different.

A successful upgrade starts with understanding your environment.

Questions such as:

• Which reports are business critical?

• Which models are still being used?

• What external applications integrate with Cognos?

• What customisations exist?

• What security changes are required?

• How will the business validate the upgrade?

• What is the rollback plan?

These are the activities that often determine whether an upgrade succeeds or fails.

The installation itself is the easy part.

The challenge is understanding the impact of the change across an environment that may have evolved over many years.

I’ve found that the most successful upgrade projects spend far more time on analysis, planning and validation than they do on the actual installation.

Because upgrading Cognos isn’t really about installing software. It’s about understanding everything connected to it and the larger the environment, the more important that becomes.

The biggest risk isn’t the installer. It’s discovering something you didn’t know existed after you’ve gone live.