Pattern: Executive Commitment
To ensure allocation of sufficient resources and reasonable delivery time frames, large scale projects such as cloud native transformation require strong commitment from the top executive team
An enterprise that is using Waterfall or Agile software development practices has made a clear decision to adopt cloud native, with a business case supporting the transformation.
In This Context
Cloud native transformations require significant changes in all areas of an organization,from infrastructure to processes to culture. These changes place large demands on the organization’s budget and time.
- Clients continue demanding fast delivery of new functionality, leaving no slack for structural changes.
- Executive performance is measured by P&L (profit and loss statement), reducing incentives to invest in long-term structural improvement such as cloud native transformation.
- Executives likely don’t understand the full scope of the cloud native transformation.
- Successful adoption of cloud native may significantly speed up feature development and increase tech teams’ job satisfaction.
Therefore
Announce the cloud native transformation as a high-priority strategic initiative that is important to the company and that has explicit support from the executive management.
- Prepare a transformation strategy and the allocation of adequate resources and budget.
- Publicly announce the cloud native transformation as a strategic initiative. This creates company-wide alignment and awareness, while setting the expectation of collaboration from all departments.
Consequently
The company is aligned around common goals and everyone understands priorities for the transformation.
- All departments follow a unified vision, thus avoiding independent silos that lead to inconsistent, or even conflicting, implementation.
- Personal public commitment by execs makes it difficult for them to reverse the decision later, due to public embarrassment related to changing their minds.
