Cloud computing initiatives enable organizations to achieve their digital business goals by introducing technical and cultural changes that often require behavioral and mindset changes in Infrastructure & Operations (I&D) teams.
About the author
Miguel Angel Borrega is a research director at Gartner.
The required shifts can often lead I&O team members to resist cloud adoption for reasons ranging from a misunderstanding of objectives and benefits to concerns about reduced roles or job loss. As a result, I&O leaders are faced with questions from their team members about job security, potential irrelevance, and what can happen if they can’t adapt to the new skills required.
Failure to address these concerns can undermine cloud initiatives and, ultimately, the organization’s digital business ambitions and ability to compete with competitors. To address this, consider the following four ways to overcome cloud adoption resistance.
1. Create insight into your cloud strategy
An organization’s cloud strategy provides an overview of how it will use, consume, manage, and operate cloud services. Without it, the organization is unable to effectively communicate the goals and benefits of the cloud to its workforce. However, more than a third of organizations embark on their cloud journey without a clear cloud strategy and another third of them with cloud migration plans that are not well aligned with business goals.
To help employees better understand the goals and benefits of their cloud initiative, outline the benefits of cloud computing with the organization’s broader business objectives and explain how the organization will deliver, integrate, and manage services from different cloud providers.
Outlining the principles and decision criteria that the organization will follow to use IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS services will better communicate the processes and help define the organizational structure. Separately explain the management approach for the cloud platforms and how they will be managed by the I&O team or by a managed service provider (MSP).
2. Focus communication on existing skills and personal growth
The cloud strategy allows I&O leaders to communicate details of the strategy, including the rationale, vision, and execution plans, to executives, management peers, and I&D team members to reduce potential cloud drag in their organization.
To streamline communication, emphasize to I&O team members what will change and what will stay the same during the adoption process. Additionally, communicate how cloud adoption will strengthen the skills they already have and accelerate their personal growth.
It is also critical to identify how cloud adoption will affect team members’ roles and activities, as well as communicating key messages about the context, rationale, and objectives of the shift to the cloud. To finalize communication, gather feedback from team members to adjust communication plan and address their key concerns as each team member evolves around strategy.
3. Collaborate with team members to shape their roles
An important factor in resistance to change is the feeling among teams that the changes, and the adjustments they make, are being forced upon them and that their voices are not taken into account. To maximize adoption, take an open-source approach to change by engaging team members in a two-way dialogue about the changes brought about by cloud adoption.
This means co-creating a gap analysis of the technical skills of team members and the skills needed in the medium to long term. Individually identify cloud project volunteers and provide access to information and training opportunities, including cloud conferences, demos, and workshops from cloud providers to ease their concerns.
Motivating I&O team members to participate in and lead cloud communities of practices will also serve leaders well. In addition, co-develop cloud training plans that are both valuable to the organization and attractive to the individual.
4. Use first followers as influencers
One aspect of change that is often ignored is that individuals change at different rates. The process of change in any group of people is like a long distance race. I&O team members’ attitudes to change often go through several stages: awareness, understanding, acceptance, and sustained commitment. As a result, I&D leaders must manage I&D team members based on their attitudes toward cloud adoption.
For those runners, or “first followers,” who are on board and want to be involved from the get-go. While joggers, or “follow the leaders”, look to the first followers as they are strongly influenced by it. Hikers, on the other hand, will “wait and see” and follow as soon as others do. For those ‘resistances’ in your organization, they will think it is not worth the effort to change. However, some of them can be influenced to embrace change.
Spend the most time working with ‘runners’ as they are the ones who will inspire the rest of the team. Runners will become motivators for joggers, and joggers will inspire walkers. Ultimately, the success of cloud change initiatives in an I&O team depends on a handful of influential individuals who can address the concerns of skeptics, so it’s critical to focus your efforts on the leaders.
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