Retain and Retire

Why These Decisions Matter

Retain and Retire prevent forced migration of unsuitable workloads. Both decisions protect delivery focus by removing non-viable candidates from near-term wave pressure.

Retain

Retain keeps a workload in the current environment for now, with explicit re-entry criteria for later migration.

When to Choose Retain

• Critical dependencies are unresolved.
• Regulatory or contractual blockers are still open.
• Business timing conflicts with migration windows.
• Technical uncertainty is too high for a stable cutover.

Required Retain Outputs

• Retain rationale with risk acceptance.
• Time-bound review trigger and owner.
• Interim operations and security controls.
• Re-entry criteria for next assessment cycle.

Retire

Retire decommissions workloads when business value no longer justifies migration and ongoing operations.

When to Choose Retire

• Workload is redundant or superseded.
• Operational cost is high relative to business benefit.
• Usage is low and replacement process already exists.
• Compliance/security exposure is reduced by decommissioning.

Required Retire Outputs

• Business and technical retirement approval.
• Data retention and archival plan.
• Dependency shutdown and integration cleanup plan.
• Controlled decommission runbook and verification checklist.

Governance for Retain and Retire

Decision transparency

Record explicit criteria and owner sign-off to avoid informal backlog drift.

Portfolio hygiene

Review retained workloads regularly and close stale retain decisions.

Risk control

Ensure retained workloads still meet baseline security and compliance controls.

Decommission safety

Retire only with validated dependency and data handling checks.

Suggested Review Cycle

1. Review Retain and Retire decisions at each wave planning checkpoint.
2. Validate whether retain blockers are still valid.
3. Confirm retire assumptions against real usage and dependency data.
4. Update migration plan scope with approved decision changes.