To Succeed in Cloud Migration, Ensure you have these Four Attributes

Being a builder also means investing in their own organizational capabilities by hiring and training the skilled people they need to move them forward. For example, Singapore Airlines launched a digital innovation blueprint recently, where organization culture played a big part. It has invested in training employees to embrace a digital mindset and imbibe agile thinking when approaching a problem. Initiatives such as the Digital Innovation Lab, which encourages and funds ideas to improve the customer journey, motivated employees to become builders.

2. They Think Big, but Start Small

Cloud transformation leaders know the world is changing, and they are determined to change with it. So, they just get started. They let go of the idea of defining an end state, because they understand that anything they design today may be superseded in just a handful of years.

Instead, they use the process of transformation itself to help them define their destination. They learn through the process of doing, and course correct accordingly when their increasing knowledge and experience tells them this is necessary. In this way they become highly adaptable not just in response to changing market conditions, but also to what their newfound insights tell them.

The only way to truly learn how to execute a successful cloud transformation programme is to start one. We describe this as letting the tactics inform the strategy – if the strategy is to be an agile, cloud-based organization, then the task is do the things that agile, cloud-based organizations do. The techniques and architectures and operating models put in place become informed by the real experiences of the people who are doing that work.

3. They Excite and Enable Everyone they can to Innovate

Successful cloud transformation leaders spread cloud competency throughout their organization by exciting staff about the future state and what will be possible, while also giving them the skills to make the most of that future state.

At AWS, we have a range of proven programmes and initiatives to help our clients excite and enable their staff at all levels, such as AWSome Days, which provide broad-based awareness, and cloud 101 training. We create executive-level simulations which demonstrate how an organization might evolve and take leaders through the various decisions they will have to make along the way. In fact, we are now bringing these into a structured programme that will help our clients reach as many employees as possible and get the most out of their cloud journey.

The goal is to have staff in product development thinking about the new services that can be built in a cloud-native environment, while their colleagues in marketing begin to explore how that some platform can be used for spreading the word to customers. At the same time, the finance team might be learning about the impact of pay-as-you-go models on both income and expenditure, while the procurement and legal teams begin considering the impact on purchasing and contracts.

The benefits organizations receive are directly connected to how quickly and deeply leaders and teams begin thinking about how to empower their builders to innovate for their customers.

Bringing all Four Traits Together

Australia’s National Australia Bank (NAB) is an exemplar of these four traits in action. Its cloud-enablement training programme Cloud Guild was established in April 2018 with the vision to give more than 2000 employees the opportunity to quickly ramp up on AWS technologies, and develop skills that would enable them to create innovative digital experiences for customers. It has quickly exceeded its own targets, with more than 4,000 employees going through the training, and more than 450 people obtaining AWS certifications in less than twelve months. Woodside.

Organizations will manifest these four attributes in different ways, but experience has shown that any successful transformation relies to some extent on all four.

Leadership sets the vision, inspires and directs the organization to get to its future state by building it themselves. They do not wait for formal assessments and prescriptive strategies. They trust in their purpose and vision and then work to ensure that everyone is onboard, make it happen, and maximise its value as it is delivered.