My Task - Migrating a SharePoint 2007 farm to SharePoint 2013 in a Single Weekend

A little over a year ago, my boss called me into her office and asked me to be the Project Manager to migrate our SharePoint 2007 farm to SharePoint 2013.  I asked her, "you mean you want me to DO the migration?"  She just smiled at me with her "thanks for understanding what I'm not saying" smile, so I slunk back to my desk wondering how the heck I was going to migrate an entire SharePoint 2007 farm for 300 users, with 3 Site Collections totaling 60 sites and 1.5 TB of data with minimal downtime.
We utilize SQL Server Reporting Services (over 200 reports), SQL Server Integration Services, custom web parts and event receivers, and 3rd party add-ins (both commercial and CodePlex).  I'm a SQL Server Admin, MCSE, and .NET developer - aside from using SharePoint, I knew very little about how a SharePoint farm worked on any version.  I knew PowerShell existed, but had never used it.
What follows is a multi-part series on how we went about the migration process - high-level planning and preparation, strategy, tools, and processes that went into what was ultimately a very successful migration.  I'm not going to focus on technical aspects such as farm architecture, setting up farm services and service associations, service account configuration, features and things of that nature - articles on those topics have been done to death.  I wish I had kept better track of some of the blogs and sites that were instrumental to our success in order to give them credit, but I only saved a few that helped tremendously along the way:

Thanks to the following, who have no idea who I am, but who also have no idea how much they helped us:
For teaching me that using the Farm Configuration Wizard is not for DBAs who like to control their database names: Mike Robbins' Blog.


For helping me not go crazy after the Farm Configuration Wizard was used on our DEV site: Multiple TechNet Articles.


For a great series of articles regarding installation of Workflow Manager for SharePoint 2013 in a multi-server farm using SSL: Spence Harbar by way of Andrew Connell.


For a helpful article regarding the uninstallation of Workflow Manager for SharePoint 2013 - since it took a lot of trial and error in DEV getting things right in the first place: TechNet Again.


For a supremely helpful series of articles on scaling Enterprise Search in SharePoint 2013: SteveMann's Path


For providing the answer to the question "Why can't I search my external content types?!": Sivarajan's Blog.


For providing multiple answers to the single question, "How do I customize my search results?"
SharePoint IT Pro Blog, Abel Solutions, SharePoint 24x7, and Heather Solomon (I wish I could find it, but I swear the first article I read regarding SharePoint Search that was also the most helpful initially, came from her).

Part 1 - How Do We Get There?