Meanwhile, when we first started planning the cloud
project, there was a level of concern in the ranks.
Cloud invites change, and change invites fear. Some
associates were apprehensive about the changes they
would have to make shifting off hard-wired applica-
tions and onto web-based tools. There was uncer-
tainty that cloud would impact jobs or force employ-
ees to learn new ways of working. Whole departments,
such as Legal and Compliance, were concerned about
retaining the same level of command and control
over their domains moving to the cloud.
Clearly, we needed to educate the organization. Peo-
ple need a true view of what you’re proposing for a
future state and how it is going to affect them. That’s
the piece that’s missing on a lot of projects I hear
about. We weren’t looking for tactical agreement
every step of the way, but we did want to ensure we
had buy-in going forward.
Customized Education
The first group that needed training was the IT staff
itself. In order to educate others, we had to be fully
conversant with all the technologies and their impact
on our associates. Cloud Technology Partners (CTP)
helped us in this area. The company was already con-
18 | THE DOPPLER | FALL 2018
sulting with Natixis on several facets of the cloud
program – creating a Total Cost of Ownership assess-
ment, identifying compliance and technical require-
ments, building a Minimum Viable Cloud. CTP deliv-
ered ongoing training sessions to the firm’s IT staff,
offering focused education on specific platforms and
layering in more general concepts over time.
We used a standard approach to train the rest of the
staff and then followed up with more customized
sessions. Some associates were comfortable after
attending one training session. Others responded to
surveys saying they needed one-on-one sessions to
get up to speed. Using a blend of internal IT staff and
outside experts helped us gain fresh perspectives on
employees’ progress.
Throughout the process, IT kept a steady flow of
communication with the C-suite and the rest of the
organization. We issued periodic surveys and con-
stantly checked with project managers to give
employees a chance to address issues they were
encountering. In my position, I made a point to cross-
check feedback from both above and below in the
organization. I was surprised there was so much
unease around the change and found that transpar-
ency and the concentrated training efforts helped
alleviate the uncertainty.