Forbes predicts that by the end of 2023, 84% of mid-to-large companies will have adopted a multicloud strategy. IT leaders have long understood the benefits of cloud adoption and now, most enterprises are a embracing a hybrid and multicloud strategy that includes a combination of on-premises infrastructure, private cloud, and public cloud. Successfully embarking on this journey requires leaders to understand that the people-related changes of new knowledge and behavior are just as important as the technology changes. Moving to the cloud will prompt new ways of working which will require taking inventory of your available skillsets, upskilling, bringing in new talent, and launching new operating and organizational models. To do this all successfully partner with organizational change management experts to guide you through this journey.

Preparing Your Team for their Cloud Journey

To best prepare your team for the changes that will impact the people-side of their cloud journey, ensure you have taken the following activities into account:

A Case for Change provides the vision and overall business rationale for the move to the cloud (why are we doing this, what’s in it for me) and serves as the foundation for future messages and activities including Communications and Training.

The Change Roadmap identifies strategic and tactical activities to prepare the organization for technical changes and changes that impact the processes, roles, and tools people use to work in the cloud over a high-level timeline.

The Skills and Talent Assessment takes inventory of existing technical and organizational skills to identify team capabilities and the gap between the current state and desired state. This output will be critical for upskilling and training plans.

The Organization Model Assessment analyzes the current IT organizational structure with the desired future cloud-based organizational structure and recommends a sequence to move the organization to the new model with clear roles and responsibilities (Spoiler alert! Consider forming your strategy and governance teams first).

The Cloud Enablement Training Plan maps roles to relevant training available and identifies timelines for self-paced and instructor-led training sessions for long-term success of the cloud environment.

The Communication Plan provides a comprehensive list of communication-based activities across all impacted stakeholders. This dynamic plan guides communication activities over the course of the project, defining details for each communication event to specifically address who, what, how, where, and when.

Additional Information

For more information on the multicloud journey and to learn about IAM, hybrid connectivity, governance, monitoring, infrastructure automation, and more read our recent publication, The IT Leader’s Guide to Multicloud Readiness.