Public Transit — Government / Public Sector · Decommissioning / Infrastructure Retirement · Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)
Decommissioning / Infrastructure Retirement Project Manager Simulation — Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)
Lead the decommissioning of the New York MTA's last on-premises SharePoint 2013 farm — ~600 surviving site collections, three years after the migration to SharePoint Online was declared done. Dispose of legacy content under public-records retention law, offboard the Crayon licensing vendor, and physically retire the servers. The catch: the farm everyone calls dead is still quietly load-bearing, and proving it is safe to switch off is harder than anyone budgeted for. Gain hands-on project management experience over 27 days of real decisions, stakeholders, and PMO deliverables — no prior experience required.
The scenario
Three years ago, the MTA finished a multi-year migration from on-premises SharePoint Server 2013 to SharePoint Online (Microsoft 365). The program was declared a success, the project team was disbanded, and most of the agency moved on. But the old farm was never switched off. A long tail of site collections — roughly 600 of them — never made the move, and rather than block the migration's closure, the program left the 2013 farm running 'temporarily' so the stragglers would still work. Three years later, that 'temporary' farm is still humming in a data center at 2 Broadway. It runs on Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2012 — both past end of support — costing the agency in aging hardware, a Crayon-managed licensing footprint nobody has trued-down, and an open recommendation from MTA Audit Services flagging the unsupported platform as a security and records-management risk. Nobody loves the farm. But every time someone proposes pulling the plug, a business unit surfaces with a workflow, a form, or an archive they still depend on. You have been brought in as the IT Project Manager to finish what the migration started: decommission the last 2013 farm for good. The replacement (SharePoint Online) already exists — your job is not to build anything, it is to get the last sites off the old platform, dispose of their content under the records-retention schedule, offboard the vendor, and physically retire the servers. The hard part is not the shutdown command. It is proving, site by site, that nothing breaks when you run it.
What you'll do as the project manager
- →Decommission the last on-premises SharePoint Server 2013 farm and retire its Windows Server 2012 R2 / SQL Server 2012 hosts by the end of the project window
- →Disposition all ~600 surviving site collections — archive, migrate the remnant to SharePoint Online, or defensibly delete — with a documented decision for every site
- →Achieve 100% records-retention compliance: no content subject to a retention schedule or legal hold is deleted, and disposition is logged for audit
- →Close MTA Audit Services finding AUD-2023-114 (unsupported platform) by confirming the farm is fully retired
- →Offboard Crayon and complete the Microsoft license true-down, eliminating the on-prem SharePoint and SQL licensing run-cost
Project management skills you'll build
The challenges you'll navigate
- •Undocumented dependencies — the farm has run for years with no current dependency map; integrations, links, and workflows may rely on it without anyone knowing
- •Records-retention exposure — deleting a site that holds content under a retention schedule or legal hold would be a compliance breach, not just a technical error
- •Holdout business units — teams that built workflows or forms on the 2013 farm may resist decommissioning and demand the farm stay up for them
- •Vendor offboarding — Crayon has managed the licensing for years and the true-down/closeout may surface lock-in or contractual friction
- •Out-of-support platform — Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2012 receive no security patches, so the farm is an active risk every day it stays up
Technology & stakeholders
You'll manage 6 stakeholders, including Vincent Calderon (Deputy Chief Information Officer, MTA IT), Linda Castellano (Director, IT Project Management Office), Priya Raman (Lead Infrastructure Architect, MTA IT), and more.
What you'll walk away with
A verified, shareable record of a completed enterprise project — plus the PMO deliverables you produced along the way (charter, project plan, SteerCo deck, closure document). It's real, demonstrable project management experience you can put on your resume and speak to in interviews.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need project management experience to start?
No. This simulation is built for aspiring and practicing project managers alike — you learn by doing. You make real decisions and get feedback, with no PMP or prior PM job required.
How long does this simulation take?
It runs over 27 days, roughly 24 minutes per day, covering the full project lifecycle from initiation to closure.
What will I learn?
You practice the core of project management — stakeholder management, budget and schedule control, risk, scope, and PMO governance — in the context of decommissioning / infrastructure retirement in public transit — government / public sector.
Is this based on the real Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)?
It's a realistic scenario inspired by Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the Public Transit — Government / Public Sector sector. Details and names are fictionalized for training — it's a simulation, not a record of any actual project.
What do I get at the end?
A verified project completion plus the PMO deliverables you produced (charter, plan, SteerCo deck, closure) — proof of hands-on experience you can show employers.
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