6 Key Activities to
Sustain Your Cloud
Transformation
Paul Barnhill
All cloud initiatives require a heavy dose of people and
process investment.
"Move to the cloud or die," is a common headline in today’s tech journals. Such
an alarming statement is not far from the truth. Any long-term technology
roadmap worth executive consideration must have a significant cloud compo-
nent. Unfortunately, research reveals most multi-year IT transformations
dominated by the technology aspects. All too often, leaders neglect to antici-
pate the people and mindset changes required to sustain a shift to a cloud-cen-
tric universe. If you are sitting down to map out your long term cloud strategy,
please make sure to anticipate the budgets and expertise required to address
the cultural shift, skill gaps, learning capacity and leadership skill changes.
The reality is, migrating just one workload to the cloud will impact your cur-
rent IT operating model. Such a change will require a well-thought-out change
plan, and an action list that scales to the volume of the workloads you antici-
pate migrating. This article highlights six key activities you must do well to
ensure a sustainable and scalable cloud transformation program.
Cloud Transformation is More Than Just Change Management
Many managers don’t realize the difference between “change” and “transfor-
mation.” Understanding that difference is more than semantics. Change man-
agement consultants at Prosci define change management as: “the discipline
that guides how we prepare, equip and support individuals to successfully
adopt change in order to drive organizational success and outcomes.” So
“change management” means implementing finite initiatives, which may or
may not cut across an entire organization. The focus is on executing a well-de-
fined shift in the way things work. It’s not easy, but the end results are predictable.
Typical change management initiatives are a process improvement or the
implementation of a new tool. For example, when a global publishing company
76 | THE DOPPLER | WINTER 2018