Moving to the cloud is just a technology project, right? Not by a long shot.
You can pull together the most compelling business case in the world,
but it's still up to the people and the processes to actually realize the
benefits your business case puts forth.
The people and organizational change aspects are many times overlooked.
But I can tell you from personal experience that it's probably the most
important factor in determining how much value you're going to realize from your
cloud adoption. In this module,
I'm going to talk about some people related and organizational aspects you
should consider as you're building out your business case.
I'll cover some common organizational challenges and ways you might be able to
address those.
Plus we'll also cover some typical organizational structures as companies
evolve their cloud maturity.
Change is hard. Well, lots of people say change is hard,
but why is it hard?
Is it because people are just afraid of change? Well,
yes. We, as living beings,
are naturally programmed to not mess with things unless we have a really good
reason to mess with them. This is just efficient biology. For example,
if I, as an ancient human, were living in a place that gave me all the food,
water, and shelter I needed,
I'd have no good reason to pick up and migrate someplace else.
This is because we're hard wired to not spend energy and put ourselves in danger
needlessly. If on the other hand, I ran out of those things,
I'd then be motivated to risk the unknown and go off in search of those things
that I'm missing. Now, of course, as humans,
we have many more needs than just food and water. Back in 1943,
psychologist,Abraham Maslow began describing a hierarchy of needs
that we have as humans. Now at the base of that hierarchy are things like food,
water, and shelter, but the hierarchy also includes safety,
the feeling of belonging and the need to feel a sense of accomplishment.
Maslow referred to these items in the lower pyramid as deficiency needs.
Further up in the hierarchy,
we have needs that motivate us to develop as people like the need to
understand, gain knowledge, and generally grow as a human.
Many modern leadership and management philosophies have been influenced by
Maslow's hierarchy.
And you too can tap into that hierarchy to help your business case.
You can start by making a list of all the fears, concerns,
and objections that people have voiced about your potential cloud migration.
You might also have to anticipate some concerns,
especially if you're in a culture that's not very comfortable voicing negative
opinions.
Some people might be concerned about losing their jobs or that they will fail to
learn the new cloud ways.
Maybe it's a fear of losing social status because they're known as a go-to
person or a gatekeeper.
Maybe they're concerned about the safety and health of the organization.
And for some,
it may be a concern around the perceived additional workload or
ambiguity of new roles. Now, once you have a decent list,
try to reframe these concerns and fears as potentially unmet
needs.
Then think about how your organization might try to meet those needs.
For example, if you anticipate a concern over additional workloads,
this might be a fear of instability or inequity. In that case,
I might facilitate a series of workshops on workload distribution and roles and
responsibilities in a new cloud environment.
If I anticipate someone is resistant because they might lose respect or status,
I might work with that person privately to design a highly visible role for them
in the cloud adoption effort.
It's not just enough for your business case to say we need to do cloud,
and include in your business case some vision and a path to that vision.
Be specific about the evolution for your people in your organization,
and also all the intermediate steps that you're going to have to take along the
way. Now,
I think I've said it in just about every module so far and, yep,
I'm going to say it again.
Training your people is about the best investment that you can make to improve
the return on your cloud adoption project.
Knowledge can be such a powerful antidote to fear.
Providing structured and continuous training for your people shows that you care
about them and want to invest in their future.
Make sure you create a safe space to make mistakes and practice what's being
learned. Allow people to get hands on and gain experience,
not just with the cloud provider,
but also in potentially new ways of working together.
If a move to the cloud is coupled with a shift to a dev ops model or agile
methods.
It's just as important to train on those items as it is on the technology.
And you should also make sure that you're appreciating that new behavior and
those newly acquired skills. Cloud skills are in high demand,
so you want to make sure your job descriptions are updated and compensation
is equitable. Another very effective way to upskill is through certifications.
All of the major cloud providers have certification programs structured at
bringing customers along from entry-level all the way up to experts.
Consider setting an organizational goal of reaching a certain number of
certifications by a target date,
build those certification goals into people's professional development plans and
incentivize both the employee and their managers to reach those
goals.
Many companies have found with just 10% of staff certified and fluent on the new
platform,
that's enough to reach critical mass for real cloud adoption and organizational
transformation. Now, yes,
while it's true that earning a certification does not mean mastery of a topic,
it does create a framework and a structure for learning as well as a
specific, measurable, objective.
Goal.
As you progress through your cloud adoption,
you should consider how to best shape your organization.
And this will likely have different looks as your cloud adoption progresses.
Perhaps in the early days,
you have a few early adopters just testing things out. Then as things evolve,
maybe you start deploying your very first projects onto the cloud.
In some companies, maybe departments other than IT, or the early adopters,
maybe so-called shadow IT groups. In some organizations,
these things continue to happen in a segmented and isolated manner.
Each group doing their own thing with their own budget and their own people.
The downside here is that we're missing out on economies of scale,
and we may have duplicate roles. Now at the other end of the spectrum,
we might have an IT department be the keepers of the cloud keys requiring
all requests to funnel through that specific it group.
The downside here is that we might lose responsiveness or a close tie
to business needs. Now,
some organizations have taken a third path by establishing something known as a
Cloud Center of Competence or a Cloud Center of Excellence.
A CCOE, as it's called,
is just a group of people who are your in-house cloud experts and
they own and promote efficiencies, best practices,
and the benefits of your cloud investment. Now,
a COE, like agile,
is one of those terms that's used and misused to describe all sorts of stuff
that it's not.
A CCOE is not synonymous with a bureaucratic gatekeeper.
Rather, a CCOE acts as an enabler,
making it easy and effortless to follow governance standards and best practices.
They promote the full potential of the cloud platform and a CCOE
might perform stuff like an architectural review for an existing cloud
landscape and recommend improvements.
Maybe a CCOE would establish a service catalog or deployment templates that
allows others to push button provision cloud systems,
but that also adhere to the company's required security practices.
CCOEs might also use consolidated billing to get the best price from the
cloud provider.
Now there's quite a bit written on the benefits of a cloud CCOE
and I would encourage you to do some more research for the best way to establish
one in your organization. For now,
I would strongly recommend including a cloud COE,
somewhere in your cloud adoption business case, maybe not immediately,
but it should definitely be on the roadmap.
Now with any significant organizational evolution,
your project will most likely dredge up some other
organizational challenges that aren't related at all to your primary project.
This is not unusual. However,
this is where your executive sponsor can be useful. Now,
while your business case can be a catalyst for other evolution,
be careful not to let your business case be hijacked,
or you might suddenly realize that you're trying to boil the ocean when all you
really want is a cup of tea.