If you’ve followed some of my previous posts and presentations on SharePoint upgrade or are about to plan an Upgrade the following Video (link below) would be of interest. The video is from the Microsoft IT team who conducted the internal Microsoft SharePoint upgrade.

Some of the key points for any successful upgrade are discussed in the video:

• detect issues early by learning about the deployment
• communications with site owners/administrators
• no data loss
• minimal downtime

Initial Best Practices and Lessons Learned from Microsoft IT SharePoint 2010 Upgrade (Video)

Managing a Parallel Upgrade to SharePoint 2010 (Video)

Upgrade Planning and Best Practices - TechNet

Upgrade Resource Centre – TechNet

Remember the more you know about the deployment the better the upgrade experience is. I’ve done many upgrades and it’s unique in each situation so there is really no single silver bullet approach.