3 ways to get serious about cloud

Before we dive too far into this discussion, I am not a 100% cloud guy nor am I suggesting you should think that way with this post. However, what I am suggesting is that you align your business and IT team in a way where you can get serious about cloud if you haven’t already and then refine that once it is running.

So, how are a few quick and dirty ways to get serious about cloud and build a foundation for growth.

Getting Everyone on the same page

The first step has got to be around your team. It is great that your leadership has said they want to be cloud first or start to compete with the cloud native disrupters in your industry but how does this trickle down. Starting with identifying and training employees on relevant technologies can be a great first step. Enabling them to explore this new operating model, the tools available to them and the applications in the ecosystem can be valuable to the business and interesting to your staff.

With some organizations I have seen this done in a number of ways but some of my favorite are where the business allows employees to spend time on what matters to them the most while integrating these new capabilities. Examples of these include company sponsored innovation competitions or contests where employees can create in whatever area they choose and present to a panel to win prizes and recognition.

Getting Agile

You have your team learning and expanding their capabilities but how do you continue to foster this environment of failing fast, learning on the fly and developing to needs now as opposed to what we hope is needed in six months or longer? Creating a top down agile organization for every area of your business, not just development, is imperative. Agile is so quickly regarded as a developers term but it applies to operating your business in this new world regardless of if you are in IT, HR, legal, finance, sales or marketing. This model of managing projects in sprints with clearly defined ownership ensure your business operates at the speed of cloud.

Freeing Innovation

One of the most critical areas in regard to freeing up innovation is getting rid of dead weight in order to release the value of these capabilities. Getting rid of the drag in your own IT department can be a great first area of exploration for your team with cloud to get those initial lessons learned and build a solid foundation. A great example of where this could be done is looking for services delivered by the IT team that are used by the IT team. Learning on yourself helps build trust in the organization and reduce risk for the business & its customers.

Another area where you can free up innovation and support the business health is by de-commissioning or removing dead and no longer used services. Taking these applications and services out of support can free up resources, capital and weight that the business is carrying with no or limited value.

Getting Serious about Cloud

With the three points above, your team can operate in a more nimble fashion towards the new model of business while eliminating some of the old baggage that supported legacy needs. If you have other areas where you think can lead to low hanging fruit for organizations trying to get serious about the cloud, please leave us a comment or shoot over a message.