Cloud Native Transformation

Interlude I. Meet Our WealthGrid Team

Now it’s time to meet the protagonists of the WealthGrid story. Jenny, the program manager, is the character we will be following most closely through WealthGrid’s journey to cloud native. Jenny is first to realize that her company is facing pressure—that the stranger is coming to WealthGrid’s town—and needs to evolve. Even if others have perhaps also recognized this, she is the first to take real action. Either way, Jenny is the catalyst for WealthGrid’s cloud native initiative. In later chapters we will also meet Steve, WealthGrid’s CEO, who plays an equally important role in the company’s cloud native transformation efforts.

So where were we? Oh, yes: a stranger has come to town. WealthGrid is facing pressure, perhaps even genuine existential threat, to adapt to this change in their market/environment.

Jenny has been a program manager at WealthGrid for several years, and she is good at her job. At WealthGrid, as in any mid-size or larger Waterfall or Agile-ish company, program managers are quite literally middle management. They sit squarely between upper-level executive leadership, which is responsible for defining strategy and project initiatives, and the engineers responsible for delivering the actual product. Program managers act as project facilitators and keep communication flowing smoothly between these two groups. Working with the engineers, project managers have detailed boots-on-the-ground insight into a project’s progress. In ...