Point 2. Align Leaders
Align Leaders is designed to identify, onboard, and prepare key stakeholders and target direct and indirect users of the cloud program, and mitigate the impacts associated with the journey to the cloud in a methodical fashion. It contains five subpoints:
2.3 Assess the impact of change
2.4 Assess organizational readiness
2.1 Align leadership
What is it?
Leadership alignment is the process of securing engagement and support of key global and regional/local business and IT stakeholders to drive the cloud transformation and transition to the new future state. If you’re using a CCoE, you should periodically evaluate whether it’s organized for functional optimization, and determine when it needs to expand, grow, and change in support of the broader cloud transformation objectives.
Sample leadership alignment activities include stakeholder management and alignment planning, leadership action planning, and participation in key stakeholder updates as needed. Generally, when managers and employees see their leaders support an initiative, they will prioritize it as well.
Why is it valuable?
Leadership alignment builds sustained understanding of the initiative and commitment to it. These, in turn, enable prioritization of the cloud transformation objectives, delivery plans, and impacts. This process identifies areas where leaders are or aren’t aligned around the strategic objectives and the change implications of those objectives, and focuses on raising the leadership team’s awareness, understanding, and commitment to the change.
Leaders are rarely on the same page consistently, especially with the new initiatives and possibilities around cloud transformation. We recommend that you address any concerns instead of ignoring them. By focusing on the underlying rationale for the concern, listening with empathy, and addressing or correcting concerns where possible, the team will win both credibility and goodwill with the leaders.
When do you use it?
To succeed in leadership alignment, identify, onboard, and prepare key stakeholders and leaders early in the project. To get to the root of leadership alignment, use a data-driven approach for gathering information. For example, interviewing key stakeholders and asking the same set of 7-10 questions provides a baseline of alignment across the board, and shows where the change team needs to focus attention. To continue building leadership alignment throughout the program, engage leaders in a way that highlights and spotlights their support, create leadership action plans, and establish a cadence for review meetings (for example, monthly or quarterly).
2.2 Assess stakeholders
What is it?
Stakeholder assessment is the first stage of managing stakeholders to identify and understand their span of control, level of influence, and disposition toward the cloud migration or transformation effort.
A stakeholder assessment identifies and captures information about the people who will be affected by the cloud program. This assessment can be used throughout the cloud migration or transformation journey to:
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Identify internal and external people who are affected by the change
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Monitor stakeholders’ readiness to undertake the cloud migration or transformation as well as any challenges or risks to their participation.
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Support stakeholders throughout the cloud program
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Identify change agents who will champion or advocate the cloud program
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Understand the breadth and impact of the cloud program on the organization
When you work with stakeholders, ask for guidance in segmenting and targeting their audiences, preferred communication channels and key events, and their points of contact within the organization.
Why is it valuable?
By understanding stakeholder expectations, the change acceleration team can more effectively anticipate likely reactions, capitalize on positive reactions, and avoid or address negative reactions. Additionally, this assessment highlights perception gaps between executive leadership, program leadership, and implementation teams. The methodical approach to assessing stakeholders consistently gives the change acceleration team a source of data that can be used to detect the level of acceptance, perception, and general attitude toward the cloud program. The stakeholders should include cross-functional leaders of teams that are affected by the change and that represent a footprint of the impacted organization in IT, business, finance, and HR. Stakeholders should also include, as applicable, leaders across organizational characteristics and culture, regional and global segments, centralized and decentralized segments, and language/translation requirements.
You can use the insights gained and the output of a stakeholder assessment to build communication plans, training plans, performance metrics, a network of change agents, and many more artifacts that last throughout the lifetime of the program. The assessment additionally serves as a relationship-building opportunity and gives the stakeholders named contacts on the cloud team.
When do you use it?
The stakeholder assessment should be conducted early to inform the case for change and to support initial organizational readiness, communication, and training plans. Additionally, the assessment should be regularly reviewed and updated throughout the cloud program to reflect changes in the project, scope, impacts, and stakeholder turnover (leavers and joiners). On a routine basis, involve stakeholders in the ongoing management of the program.
Think of ways in which your team can involve stakeholders in program events. Also consider opportunities for stakeholders to involve the cloud program in their own events. As more employees become familiar with the cloud program through their own leadership and through familiar communication channels, the more natural the transition to the cloud will be. As stakeholder engagement and interest in the cloud program increases, the employees who report to that stakeholder will naturally follow in engagement, participation, and sentiment toward the journey.
2.3 Assess the impact of change
What is it?
A change impact assessment looks at the macro effects of the change and reports on the various skills, processes, performance management, and technology outcomes for each stakeholder group. It is necessary to identify and capture significant differences between the current state and the desired future state. Measuring the degree to which cloud changes will affect an organization is critical to properly scoping the interventions of the change acceleration program. Typical changes include redesigned processes, new technologies, new organizational structures, new roles and responsibilities, and new metrics and reporting mechanisms.
Why is it valuable?
When stakeholder groups are strongly affected by changes, send awareness communications to both users and their management. The same is true if the stakeholder group is affected to a lesser degree, but the type of change will be perceived as negative or will lead to an increased workload for that stakeholder group.
Assessing and documenting change impacts help customers understand the changes at lower levels of granularity, such as process area, subprocess area, technology or application level, stakeholder group impacts, and role impacts. As a result, you can use the change impact analysis to determine the appropriate steps to incorporate into a change acceleration plan, communication plan, or training plan. Additionally, you can use this analysis as a tool for identifying stakeholders who are tangentially tied to cloud adoption and success, and should be included in various channels of communication, governance structures, decision points, policy reviews, and so on. You can analytically and methodically stack change impacts against one another to contextualize the changes and to understand whether any stakeholder groups will be overwhelmed by the amount of change. If so, you can modify your plans to space out deployments accordingly.
Organizations sometimes find it difficult to anticipate the change impacts that their employees and stakeholders will experience, because of the newness of cloud technologies. Additionally, due to the speed of cloud changes and the introduction of new services every year, new change impacts will be created and experienced continuously. As cloud adoption expands throughout an organization, the change impacts across stakeholder groups, lines of business, regions, and so on will also change.
When do you use it?
Use change impact assessments throughout the program to document when and how stakeholder groups become involved, and formulate specific plans to address those impacts. Here are some practical examples to consider:
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For managers, document when employees are likely to need training, when employees might need to have cloud-specific performance metrics incorporated into other annual performance plans, and when speaking points might be required.
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For HR stakeholders, document when key training events might be needed, when hiring plans might be required, how these changes might affect recruiting plans, when skill development opportunities become evident, when organizational design changes might be needed, and whether a compensation assessment should be conducted to market test the value of cloud talent and skills.
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For working council or labor union stakeholders, document risks and concerns that might be raised and how best to address them, and if a regular meeting cadence should be established to improve transparency in communications.
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For finance stakeholders, document when a budget might be required for headcount and training activities, how budget processes and cycles might be affected by the cloud journey, and how the transition from on premises to the cloud might change the way fixed and variable costs are treated in the company.
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Consider taking a FinOps view
and identify how IT stakeholders, business stakeholders, finance stakeholders, and developers might need to work differently as a result of cloud transformation. The adoption of FinOps capabilities is likely to impact the processes, tools, roles, and responsibilities, and these capabilities can be used as a data source for identifying change impacts. These impacts could lead to establishing communications, training, and mindset or culture shifts around FinOps, and how the business manages, measures, and views the value of cloud investment.
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2.4 Assess organizational readiness
What is it?
An organizational readiness assessment is used to understand the customer organization's propensity, ability, and desire to adapt to change. The organizational readiness assessment is then used to identify strengths, barriers, and challenges to narrowing any gaps in readiness. Typically, a survey format is used to conduct an organizational readiness assessment.
Why is it valuable?
It is important to understand the organization's current culture and organizational structure as well as its desired state. These are instrumental in identifying opportunities and barriers that must be addressed for the change effort to move forward effectively, measuring where the cloud transformation effort stands in regard to accepting change, and mitigating risk by using action plans that support the overall objectives of the change effort. Sharing results with participants shows progression, empathy, and program velocity.
When do you use it?
Implement an organizational readiness assessment at a key milestone such as a pilot application deployment to get an initial gauge of preparedness. This initial assessment can serve as a mechanism to improve the change acceleration plan and timing of other interventions. As a result of an organization readiness assessment and findings, it might be necessary to do the following:
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Review the strategic vision and business case for the program.
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Obtain additional sponsorship for the program.
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Expand ownership of the program to the cross-functional leaders and give them actions to communicate expectations to their teams.
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Invest in additional communications and training.
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Prioritize skill building so employees have an opportunity to improve their cloud acumen and achieve certifications.
2.5 Create a case for change
What is it?
A case for change is a message and document that ties the cloud transformation to the rationale for changing. Ideally, it is supported by a strong business case and used to consistently communicate the vision in a way that generates commitment to cloud transformation from stakeholders. It can be tailored and expanded to communicate messages that are companywide or function-specific, and to explain the benefits to IT, business, finance, customers, and employees.
When you create a case for change, keep some basic criteria in mind. This document should communicate the message in simple, clear terms that even those new or unfamiliar to the cloud program can comprehend. It should explain why the change is necessary by describing the current state, and specify the consequences of beginning the cloud transformation at this time or delaying it. If applicable, the case for change should be aligned with other initiatives that improve business results, to capture additional ways in which employees might participate in the cloud journey. The case for change message should be memorable or even metaphorical in describing the future state so it can be remembered easily. The case for change should sincerely communicate the personal convictions of the leadership team in voice, tone, feeling, and word choice, and might explain what individuals must personally do to support its realization. The case for change message should also be brief―ideally, you should be able to communicate it in a one-page document or in a short, 5-minute presentation that can be included in other communications and events.
Why is it valuable?
Leaders need to effect changes that will enable their organization to succeed in current and future markets. Employees might be resistant to change if they don’t believe in what leaders are asking them to achieve. There is a big difference in performance between someone who wants to change and someone who changes because they have to. A solid and well-communicated case for change helps people commit to the cloud transformation journey out of their own volition.
When do you use it?
Create a case for change after you conduct a stakeholder assessment. The case of change from leaders articulates the benefits of the cloud transformation clearly and truthfully to the influencers involved. Because you are asking specifically about benefits and rationale for the cloud journey in the stakeholder assessment, the case for change will begin to write itself and give a holistic picture that explains the change and how it will help the business. The case for change should also explain the consequences of not making the cloud journey, how staying on premises will derail other strategic priorities, and any cost and talent implications.
Utilize the case for change throughout various communications. For example, launch it as a one-pager and review it in employee all-hands meetings. Then shift its voice to focus on how the case for change benefits specific audiences in a given meeting or training class. If you start all major meetings and cloud transformation events with the case for change, employees will become very familiar with it, and will start to understand it at a role-based level. When employees can articulate the case for change to others, the message will become part of the culture and will begin to transform the organization’s journey to the cloud from both bottom-up and top-down directions. When you’re presenting the case for change, ask questions and get the audience involved in a two-way dialogue. This can lead to unanticipated engagements or involvements, and additional connections between the employees and their attitudes toward the cloud journey.
