14 signs your cloud journey may be off track
Have you spent a great deal of time and effort training your staff to be cloud practitioners only to find no one is building cloud-native applications? Then your organisation isn’t realising the full value of your cloud investment. In this article, we will discuss why this is a problem and what you can do about it.
Cloud computing requires a whole new skill set, so training is a logical first step. Ensuring your staff have the skills, mindset and energy to take advantage of the self-serve, on-demand, pay-per-use nature of cloud computing takes time, and requires leadership and positive re-enforcement.
Introducing the cloud guild
Cloud guilds fit the bill nicely. They improve cloud knowledge, can generate excitement and momentum, and produce cloud leaders who will evangelise the power of cloud computing throughout the organisation. They do this by incorporating activities such as hackathons, game days and workshops, as well as more traditional learning experiences, such as training courses that lead to certifications.
Some companies have gone all in on cloud guilds, asking their entire staff to become cloud practitioners and obtain certifications. In fact, some companies promote their and number of certified employees as part of their pitch during hiring. Certifications, particularly cloud certs, are valuable in the broader industry and so prospective employees are likely to look favourably on a company that will help them.
Despite the initial cloud guild success, for many companies the momentum has waned, the energy dissipated, and the cloud skills learned in the early days are starting to atrophy. Why? What has happened?
Out with the old and in with the new
A fading cloud guild is a symptom of a larger problem: the lack of a cloud operating model that connects the value of cloud computing—self-serve, on-demand, pay-per-use—with the skills, processes and tools of your organisation.
In a previous blog from this series, “You’ve built a cloud landing zone but no-one is using it”, we explained why, for many companies, so few teams are using their organisation’s cloud landing zone. We concluded that most landing zones are not really designed with customers in mind because they were delivered using a traditional IT project delivery model. To solve this problem, we recommended the cloud team replace their IT project delivery model with a product development model.
Now it is time to introduce a new type of IT team—the IT product team. Their role is to build cloud-native applications and services to solve business problems.
IT product teams are an improvement on traditional IT application teams as they have the skills to take advantage of the self-serve, on-demand, pay-per-use nature of cloud computing. Just like the cloud team, IT product teams should also replace the traditional IT project delivery model with a product development model to ensure they’re delivering the features that customers need.
With your cloud team and IT product teams using the product development model to deliver features, your organisation will have the two fundamental type teams to implement a fully functioning cloud operating model.
These teams will have the incentive to make further changes that we will discuss in later articles, including simplifying your organisation’s RACI, introducing a cloud business case, and expanding the self-serve, on-demand cloud model to other services, such as networking and security. They’ll also form the core of your cloud guild.
A waning cloud guild is a symptom of a larger problem in your organisation: the lack of a functioning cloud operating model. At DigiRen, we have years of experience building cloud solutions. We specialise in building cloud operating models that enable businesses to take advantage of their cloud investment. Creating IT product teams is an important component of the model and if you would like to learn more, please contact us at solutions@digiren.com.au.
The next article in this blog series introduces the cloud shared responsibility model and how it can reduce the demarcation disputes that so often cause cost overruns, delays and cancellations. To keep up to date, follow us on LinkedIn.