14 signs your cloud journey may be off track
If you’re in the process of making the move to the cloud but are still dealing with the friction that comes with complex responsibility matrixes in your IT department, then it’s time to introduce a new model of working. In this article, we will discuss why your existing RACI is holding you back and what you can do about it.
The problem with RACIs
A RACI matrix sets out who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, or Informed for completing tasks or deliverables in a project. They’re a key deliverable that all IT teams must produce before putting their service into production.
Modern IT departments are flush with complex RACIs, usually reflecting the different technology teams and stakeholders involved in delivering and operating IT services.
One key problem with complex RACIs is the demarcation disputes, resulting in delivery delays, cost overruns and in some cases, cancellation of initiatives altogether. The problem can be so bad that some delivery teams have looked to bypass stakeholders altogether, going directly to public cloud providers, and contributing to the problem of shadow IT with its own cost, operational and security risks.
Introducing the cloud shared responsibility model
So where does your cloud investment fit into this discussion? Cloud services come with their own type of RACI—the cloud shared responsibility model. It defines the responsibilities between just two actors: the cloud service provider and the cloud service user.
You’d be familiar with the model if you have used a public cloud provider like AWS, Microsoft Azure or GCP. These providers are responsible for providing resources, such as compute, storage and networking using the core cloud characteristics: self-serve, on-demand, pay-per-use.
Emulating this relationship between cloud providers and cloud users in your organisation can address the demarcation disputes and reduce the appeal of shadow IT by exposing what makes your cloud investment so valuable: the ability for users to access resources quickly with no high upfront costs.
Introducing a fully functioning cloud shared responsibility model is a long-term undertaking, but it is possible to start small with just two teams: your cloud team, representing the cloud provider, and an IT product team, representing the cloud users.
These two teams must forge a cloud shared responsibility agreement where your cloud team is responsible for providing a self-serve, on-demand, pay-per-use service, and the IT product team is responsible for using the service to deliver value to the business.
Putting the new model to work
With the introduction of a cloud shared responsibility model, and your cloud team now accountable to more IT product teams, you’ll find the demarcation disputes causing cost overruns, delays and cancellations will be greatly reduced. It will also reduce the appeal of shadow IT and mitigate the accompanying cost, operational and security risks.
This first agreement is only the start of the discussion as it will impact other parts of the business. Two functions in particular—security and networking—will need to be folded into the cloud shared responsibility model before IT product teams can realise the full value of the model. This will be the subject of a future article.
Separately, finance will also be impacted as the business moves away from funding large capital outlays required to purchase equipment and licenses to operational costs to fund feature development. Again, this will be the subject of a future article.
Introducing the cloud shared responsibility model is a significant undertaking and has quite far-reaching implications for team members and their roles. For the introduction to be successful, it needs to be accompanied by a change program that places team members and their needs at the centre of the discussion. We will cover how to do this throughout the series.
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. Building a cloud shared responsibility model is an important component and if you would like our help or want to learn more, please contact us at solutions@digiren.com.au and follow us on LinkedIn.
The next article in this series: 'Sign #5: Your business is not willing to fund your cloud service', explores the common misconception that IT services are free. The article will delve into the common structure of IT spend and how this can lead to off-balance pass-through costs that leave your cloud service ineffective when compared with existing on-premises solutions.