WGU E011 – TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION TASK 1: DATA CENTER
MIGRATION TO CLOUD | COMPLETE AUDIENCE ANALYSIS AND MESSAGE
PLAN | LATEST 2026/2027
Task 1: Data Center Migration to Cloud
Audience Analysis and Message Plan
1
,Part I: Introduction and Scenario Overview
Purpose of This Document
This document presents a complete audience analysis and message
plan for a technical communication project centered on the migration of an
on-premises data center to a public cloud environment. The purpose of the
plan is to make sure that every group affected by the migration receives
information that is accurate, relevant to their role, and presented in a form
they can use. A migration of this size touches nearly every part of an
organization. Because of that, a single announcement or a single technical
briefing would not be enough. People who approve budgets need to hear
about cost and risk, people who run systems need to hear about procedures
and timelines, and people who simply use the applications need to know
what will change for them and when.
The plan follows the structure commonly expected in technical
communication work. It first defines the situation and the communication
goal. It then identifies and analyzes each audience, considering what each
group already knows, what each group needs to know, what concerns each
group is likely to raise, and how each group prefers to receive information.
Finally, it builds a message plan that connects those audience findings to
specific messages, channels, formats, timing, and ways to measure whether
the communication worked.
Fictional Scenario
The organization used throughout this sample is Brightfield Logistics, a
mid-sized regional freight and warehousing company with about 1,800
employees across eleven locations. For fifteen years Brightfield has operated
its own data center at its headquarters. The facility hosts the transportation
2
, management system, the warehouse inventory platform, the finance and
payroll applications, the customer portal, and a number of smaller internal
tools. The hardware in the facility is aging, the lease on the building's cooling
and power infrastructure is up for renewal, and the company has
experienced two unplanned outages in the past eighteen months that
delayed shipments and frustrated customers.
After a nine-month evaluation, the executive team approved a plan to
move most workloads to a public cloud provider over a fourteen-month
period. The migration will be done in four phases. Phase one covers
planning, security design, and a small pilot of low-risk internal tools. Phase
two moves supporting systems such as file storage, reporting, and
development environments. Phase three moves the core business
applications, including the transportation management system and the
warehouse platform. Phase four covers decommissioning of the old
hardware, final cost optimization, and a post-migration review. A small
portion of regulated payroll data will remain in a private environment under
a hybrid arrangement.
The project is led by the Director of Infrastructure, who has asked the
technical communicator on the project team to prepare a communication
plan before the first announcement is made. This document is that plan.
Communication Goal and Scope
The overall communication goal is to inform, prepare, and reassure the
people affected by the migration so that the project moves forward with
informed support, minimal disruption, and clear accountability. Specific
objectives are listed below.
3
MIGRATION TO CLOUD | COMPLETE AUDIENCE ANALYSIS AND MESSAGE
PLAN | LATEST 2026/2027
Task 1: Data Center Migration to Cloud
Audience Analysis and Message Plan
1
,Part I: Introduction and Scenario Overview
Purpose of This Document
This document presents a complete audience analysis and message
plan for a technical communication project centered on the migration of an
on-premises data center to a public cloud environment. The purpose of the
plan is to make sure that every group affected by the migration receives
information that is accurate, relevant to their role, and presented in a form
they can use. A migration of this size touches nearly every part of an
organization. Because of that, a single announcement or a single technical
briefing would not be enough. People who approve budgets need to hear
about cost and risk, people who run systems need to hear about procedures
and timelines, and people who simply use the applications need to know
what will change for them and when.
The plan follows the structure commonly expected in technical
communication work. It first defines the situation and the communication
goal. It then identifies and analyzes each audience, considering what each
group already knows, what each group needs to know, what concerns each
group is likely to raise, and how each group prefers to receive information.
Finally, it builds a message plan that connects those audience findings to
specific messages, channels, formats, timing, and ways to measure whether
the communication worked.
Fictional Scenario
The organization used throughout this sample is Brightfield Logistics, a
mid-sized regional freight and warehousing company with about 1,800
employees across eleven locations. For fifteen years Brightfield has operated
its own data center at its headquarters. The facility hosts the transportation
2
, management system, the warehouse inventory platform, the finance and
payroll applications, the customer portal, and a number of smaller internal
tools. The hardware in the facility is aging, the lease on the building's cooling
and power infrastructure is up for renewal, and the company has
experienced two unplanned outages in the past eighteen months that
delayed shipments and frustrated customers.
After a nine-month evaluation, the executive team approved a plan to
move most workloads to a public cloud provider over a fourteen-month
period. The migration will be done in four phases. Phase one covers
planning, security design, and a small pilot of low-risk internal tools. Phase
two moves supporting systems such as file storage, reporting, and
development environments. Phase three moves the core business
applications, including the transportation management system and the
warehouse platform. Phase four covers decommissioning of the old
hardware, final cost optimization, and a post-migration review. A small
portion of regulated payroll data will remain in a private environment under
a hybrid arrangement.
The project is led by the Director of Infrastructure, who has asked the
technical communicator on the project team to prepare a communication
plan before the first announcement is made. This document is that plan.
Communication Goal and Scope
The overall communication goal is to inform, prepare, and reassure the
people affected by the migration so that the project moves forward with
informed support, minimal disruption, and clear accountability. Specific
objectives are listed below.
3
