Cloud Native Transformation

Interlude II. First Attempt at Transformation–Cloud Native “Side Project”

This interlude includes a description of Jenny’s first attempt to lead WealthGrid through a cloud native transformation. One of the most frequent mistakes we see is a company trying to treat a cloud native transformation as just another simple technology shift. Instead of allocating the resources necessary to implement a major organization-wide evolution of both tech and culture, the initiative gets treated as just another minor upgrade. It’s assigned as a side project, or as just another system upgrade added to the backlog of standard tasks. Since getting started with cloud native can be deceptively easy, this may even seem to work well at first. But the reasons why this is a poor way to approach a transformation begin to reveal themselves as the project progresses. Things rapidly grow more complex, however, and more and more problems arise; meanwhile, the transformation team still has to keep working on existing system, too. Eventually the initiative will grind to a halt, though no one is quite sure why or what happened.

When last we saw Jenny, our technical program manager, she had come to the realization that now is the time for WealthGrid to make the move to the cloud.

She had been experiencing pressure for just such a move from both above and below. The engineering team she oversees really wants to try out new tools and technology. Some of WealthGrid’s executive leadership, meanwhile, has been reading ...