AWS Cloud Adoption Framework: Governance Perspective

Publication date: August 26, 2022 (Document revisions)

Abstract

As the proliferation of digital technologies continues to disrupt market segments and industries, adopting Amazon Web Services (AWS) can help you transform your organization to meet the changing business conditions and evolving customer needs. As the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, AWS can help you reduce business risk, improve environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance, increase revenue, and improve operational efficiency.

The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) uses AWS experience and best practices to help you digitally transform and accelerate your business outcomes through innovative use of AWS. Use the AWS CAF to identify and prioritize transformation opportunities, evaluate and improve your cloud readiness, and iteratively evolve your transformation roadmap.

AWS CAF groups its guidance in six perspectives: Business, People, Governance, Platform, Security, and Operations. Each perspective is covered in a separate whitepaper. This whitepaper covers the Governance perspective, which focuses on helping you orchestrate your cloud initiatives while maximizing organizational benefits and minimizing transformation-related risks.

Introduction

Millions of AWS customers, including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government organizations, are using AWS to migrate and modernize legacy workloads, become data-driven, automate and optimize business processes, and reinvent operating and business models. Through cloud-powered digital business transformation, they are able to improve their business outcomes, including reduce business risk, improve environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance, increase revenue, and improve operational efficiency.

Organizational ability to effectively leverage cloud to digitally transform (organizational cloud readiness) is underpinned by a set of foundational capabilities. A capability is an organizational ability to use processes to deploy resources (people, technology, and any other tangible or intangible assets) to achieve a particular outcome. The AWS CAF identifies these capabilities and provides prescriptive guidance that thousands of organizations around the world have successfully used to improve their cloud readiness and accelerate their cloud transformation journeys.

AWS CAF groups its capabilities in six perspectives:

• Business

• People

• Governance

• Platform

• Security

• Operations

Each perspective comprises a set of capabilities that functionally related stakeholders own or manage in their cloud transformation journey.

The Governance perspective focuses on helping you orchestrate your cloud initiatives while maximizing organizational benefits and minimizing transformation-related risks. It comprises seven capabilities, as shown in the following figure. Common stakeholders include chief transformation officer, chief information officer (CIO), chief technology officer (CTO), chief financial officer (CFO), chief data officer (CDO), and chief risk officer (CRO).

Cloud-powered digital transformation is a continuous endeavor underpinned by numerous cross-functional initiatives that need to be carefully orchestrated, and managed as a cohesive long-term program. At the same time, too much governance, oversight, and Red Tape may slow down, or even bring to a halt complex transformation programs, while a lack of governance may lead to an increase in business and technology risks. An effective governance function helps organizations identify and remove blockers, reach alignment on goals, progress, and achievements, and ultimately accelerate organizational change.

AWS and the AWS Partner Network (APN) provide tools and services that can help you along each step of the way. AWS Professional Services is a global team of experts that provides assistance through a collection of AWS CAF aligned offerings that can help you achieve specific outcomes related to your cloud transformation.

AWS CAF Governance perspective capabilities

Are you Well-Architected?

The AWS Well-Architected Framework helps you understand the pros and cons of the decisions you make when building systems in the cloud. The six pillars of the Framework allow you to learn architectural best practices for designing and operating reliable, secure, efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable systems. Using the AWS Well-Architected Tool, available at no charge in the AWS Management Console, you can review your workloads against these best practices by answering a set of questions for each pillar.

For more expert guidance and best practices for your cloud architecture—reference architecture deployments, diagrams, and whitepapers—refer to the AWS Architecture Center.