Document Your Cloud Strategy

Get ready for the cloudy future with a consistent, proven strategy.

Analyst perspective

Any approach is better than no approach

Moving to the cloud is a big, scary transition, like moving from gas-powered to electric cars, or from cable to streaming, or even from the office to working from home. There are some undeniable benefits, but we must reorient our lives a bit to accommodate those changes, and the results aren’t always one-for-one. A strategy helps you make decisions about your future direction and how you should respond to changes and challenges. In Document Your Cloud Strategy we hope to help you accomplish just that: clarifying your overall mission and vision (as it relates to the cloud) and helping you develop an approach to changes in technology, people management, and, of course, governance. The cloud is not a panacea. Taken on its own, it will not solve your problems. But it can be an important tool in your IT toolkit, and you should aim to make the best use of it – whatever “best” happens to mean for you.

Jeremy Roberts

Research Director, Infrastructure and Operations

Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

The cloud is multifaceted. It can be complicated. It can be expensive. Everyone has an opinion on the best way to proceed – and in many cases has already begun the process without bothering to get clearance from IT. The core challenge is creating a coherent strategy to facilitate your overall goals while making the best use of cloud technology, your financial resources, and your people.

Common Obstacles

Despite the universally agreed-upon benefit of formulating a coherent strategy, several obstacles make execution difficult:

• Inconsistent understanding of what the cloud means
• Inability to come to a consensus on key decisions
• Ungoverned decision making
• Unclear understanding of cloud roles and responsibilities

Info-Tech’s Approach

A cloud strategy might seem like a big project, but it’s just a series of smaller conversations. The methodology presented here is designed to facilitate those conversations, using a curated list of topics, prompts, participant lists, and sample outcomes. We have divided the strategy into four key areas:

1. Vision and alignment
2. People
3. Governance
4. Technology

The answers might be different, but the questions are the same

Every organization will approach the cloud differently, but they all need to ask the same questions: When will we use the cloud? What forms will our cloud usage take? How will we manage governance? What will we do about people? How will we incorporate new technology into our environment? The answers to these questions are as numerous as there are people to answer them, but the questions must be asked.

Your challenge

This research is designed to help organizations that are facing these challenges or looking to:

• Ensure that the cloud strategy is complete and accurately reflects organizational goals and priorities.
• Develop a consistent and coherent approach to adopting cloud services.
• Design an approach to mitigate risks and challenges associated with adopting cloud services.
• Create a shared understanding of the expected benefits of cloud services and the steps required to realize those benefits.

Grappling with a cloud strategy is a top initiative: 43% of respondents report progressing on a cloud-first strategy as a top cloud initiative.

Source: Flexera, 2021.

Definition: Cloud strategy

A document providing a systematic overview of cloud services, their appropriate use, and the steps that an organization will take to maximize value and minimize risk.

Common obstacles

These barriers make this challenge difficult to address for many organizations:

• The cloud means different things to different people, and creating a strategy that is comprehensive enough to cover a multitude of use cases while also being written to be consumable by all stakeholders is difficult.
• The incentives to adopt the cloud differ based on the expected benefit for the individual customer. User-led decision making and historically ungoverned deployments can make it difficult to reset expectation and align with a formal strategy.
• Getting all the right people in a room together to agree on the key components of the strategy and the direction undertaken for each one is often difficult.

Info-Tech’s approach

Info-Tech’s approach

Your cloud strategy will comprise the elements listed under “vision and alignment,” “technology,” “governance,” and “people.” The Info-Tech methodology involves breaking the strategy down into subcomponents and going through a three-step process for each one. Start by reviewing a standard set of questions and understanding the goal of the exercise: What do we need to know? What are some common considerations and best practices? Once you’ve had a chance to review, discuss your current state and any gaps: What has been done? What still needs to be done? Finally, outline how you plan to go forward: What are your next steps? Who needs to be involved?

Review

• What questions do we need to answer to complete the discussion of this strategy component? What does the decision look like?
• What are some key terms and best practices we must understand before deciding?

Discuss

• What steps have we already taken to address this component?
• Does anything still need to be done?
• Is there anything we’re not sure about or need further guidance on?

Go forward

• What are the next steps?
• Who needs to be involved?
• What questions still need to be asked/answered?
• What should the document’s wording look like?

Info-Tech’s methodology for documenting your cloud strategy

Insight summary

Separate strategy from tactics

Separate strategy from tactics! A strategy requires building out the framework for ongoing decision making. It is meant to be high level and achieve a large goal. The outcome of a strategy is often a sense of commitment to the goal and better communication on the topic.

The cloud does not exist in a vacuum

Your cloud strategy flows from your cloud vision and should align with the broader IT strategy. It is also part of a pantheon of strategies and should exist harmoniously with other strategies – data, security, etc.

People problems needn’t preponderate

The cloud doesn’t have to be a great disruptor. If you handle the transition well, you can focus your people on doing more valuable work – and this is generally engaging.

Governance is a means to an end

Governing your deployment for its own sake will only frustrate your end users. Articulate the benefits users and the organization can expect to see and you’re more likely to receive the necessary buy-in.

Technology isn’t a panacea

Technology won’t solve all your problems. Technology is a force multiplier, but you will still have to design processes and train your people to fully leverage it.

Key deliverable

Cloud Strategy Document template

Inconsistency and informality are the enemies of efficiency. Capture the results of the cloud strategy generation exercises in the Cloud Strategy Document template.

• Record the results of the exercises undertaken as part of this blueprint in the Cloud Strategy Document template.
• It is important to remember that not every cloud strategy will look exactly the same, but this template represents an amalgamation of best practices and cloud strategy creation honed over several years of advisory service in the space.
• You know your audience better than anyone. If you would prefer a strategy delivered in a different way (e.g. presentation format) feel free to adapt the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation into a longer strategy presentation.
• Emphasis is an area where you should exercise discretion as well. A cost-oriented cloud strategy, or one that prioritizes one type of cloud (e.g. SaaS) at the exclusion of others, may benefit from more focus on some areas than others, or the introduction of relevant subcategories. Include as many of these as you think will be relevant.
• Parsimony is king – if you can distill a concept to its essence, start there. Include additional detail only as needed. You want your cloud strategy document to be read. If it’s too long or overly detailed, you’ll encounter readability issues.

Blueprint benefits

Measure the value of this blueprint

Don’t take our word for it:

• Document Your Cloud Strategy has been available for several years in various forms as both a workshop and as an analyst-led guided implementation.
• After each engagement, we send a survey that asks members how they benefited from the experience. Those who have worked through Info-Tech’s cloud strategy material have given overwhelmingly positive feedback.
• Additionally, members reported saving between 10 and 20 days and an average of $46,499.
• Measure the value by calculating the time saved as a result of using Info-Tech’s framework vs. a home-brewed cloud strategy alternative and by comparing the overall cost of a guided implementation or workshop with the equivalent offering from another firm. We’re confident you’ll come out ahead.

8.8/10 Average reported satisfaction

13 Days Average reported time savings

$46,499 Average cost savings

Executive Brief Case Study

INDUSTRY: Pharmaceuticals

SOURCE: Info-Tech workshop

Pharmaceutical company

The unnamed pharmaceutical company that is the subject of this case study was looking to make the transition to the cloud. In the absence of a coherent strategy, the organization had a few cloud deployments with no easily discernable overall approach. Representatives of several distinct functions (legal, infrastructure, data, etc.) all had opinions on the uses and abuses of cloud services, but it had been difficult to round everyone up and have the necessary conversations. As a result, the strategy exercise had not proceeded in a speedy or well-governed way. This lack of strategic readiness presented a roadblock to moving forward with the cloud strategy and to work with the cloud implementation partner, tasked with execution.

Results

The company engaged Info-Tech for a four-day workshop on cloud strategy documentation. Over the course of four days, participants drawn from across the organization discussed the strategic components and generated consensus statements and next steps. The team was able to formalize the cloud strategy and described the experience as saving 10 days.

Example output: Document your cloud strategy workshop exercise

Anything in green, the team was reasonably sure they had good alignment and next steps. Those yellow flags warranted more discussion and were not ready for documentation.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."

Guided Implementation

"Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."

Workshop

"We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."

Consulting

"Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. A typical GI is 4 to 6 calls over the course of 1 to 3 months

Phase 1

Document Your Vision and Alignment

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

1. Record your cloud mission and vision
2. Document your cloud strategy’s alignment with other strategic plans
3. Record your cloud guiding principles
4. Define success

This phase has the following outcome:

• Documented strategy: vision and alignment

Record your mission and vision

Build on the work you’ve already done

Before formally documenting your cloud strategy, you should ensure that you have a good understanding of your overall cloud vision. How do you plan to leverage the cloud? What goals are you looking to accomplish? How will you distribute your workloads between different cloud service models (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS)? What will your preferred delivery model be (public, private, hybrid)? Will you support your cloud deployment internally or use the services of various consultants or managed service providers?

The answers to these questions will inform the first section of your cloud strategy. If you haven’t put much thought into this or think you could use a deep dive on the fundamentals of your cloud vision and cloud archetypes, consider reviewing Define Your Cloud Vision, the companion blueprint to this one.

Once you understand your cloud vision and what you’re trying to accomplish with your cloud strategy, this phase will walk you through aligning the strategy with other strategic initiatives. What decisions have others made that will impact the cloud strategy (or that the cloud strategy will impact)? Who must be involved/informed? What callouts must be involved at what point? Do users have access to the appropriate strategic documentation (and would they understand it if they did)?

You must also capture some guiding principles. A strategy by its nature provides direction, helping readers understand the decisions they should make and why those decisions align with organizational interests. Creating some top-level principles is a useful exercise because those principles facilitate comprehension and ensure the strategy’s applicability.

Finally, this phase will walk you through the process of measuring success. Once you know where you’d like to go, the principles that underpin your direction, and how your cloud strategy figures into the broader strategic pantheon, you should record what success actually means. If you’re looking to save money, overall cost should be a metric you track. If the cloud is all about productivity, generate appropriate productivity metrics. If you’re looking to expand into new technology or close a datacenter, you will need to track output specific to those overall goals.

Review: mission and vision

The overall organizational mission is a key foundational element of the cloud strategy. If you don’t understand where you’re going, how can you begin the journey to get there? This section of the strategy has four key parts that you should understand and incorporate into the beginning of the strategy document. If you haven’t already, review Define Your Cloud Vision for instructions on how to generate these elements.

Understand key cloud concepts: Archetype

Once you understand the value of the cloud, your workloads’ general suitability for the cloud, and your proposed risks and mitigations, the next step is to define your cloud archetype. Your organization’s cloud archetype is the strategic posture that IT adopts to best support the organization’s goals. Info-Tech’s model recognizes seven archetypes, divided into three high-level archetypes. After consultation with your stakeholders, and based on the results of the suitability and risk assessment activities, define your archetype. The archetype feeds into the overall cloud vision and provides simple insight into the cloud future state for all stakeholders. The cloud vision itself is captured in a “vision statement,” a short summary of the overall approach that includes the overall cloud archetype.

Understand key cloud concepts: service and delivery models

In 2011, NIST published a standard definition of cloud computing. While not every provider exactly exemplifies each component, the five key cloud characteristics and the service models outlined here provide a good basis for designing your vision (and, therefore, your strategy). If you’re not sure how the different types of cloud should factor into your strategy, consider analyzing a handful of key workloads using the Cloud Vision Workbook. You will gain an understanding of the relative suitability of each service/delivery model for the cloud and can incorporate the results into your document.