Azure: CAF - 2

Function

• Cloud adoption functions deliver technical solutions.
• Cloud strategy functions align technical change with business needs.
• Cloud operations functions support and operate adopted solutions.
• Cloud center of excellence (CCoE) functions improve quality, speed, and resiliency of adoption.
• Cloud governance functions manage risk.
• Cloud platform functions operate and mature the platform.
• Cloud automation functions accelerate adoption and innovation.
• Cloud security functions manage security risks.

Team

cloud strategy team

To be successful, every cloud adoption journey needs to involve some level of strategic planning. This getting started guide is designed to help you establish a dedicated team or virtual team that can build and deliver on a solid cloud strategy.

As the cloud strategy team forms and gets started, the strategy facilitator is temporarily accountable for creating alignment and keeping the team aligned with business goals. The strategy facilitator is often the person most accountable for the success of the cloud adoption journey.

Note: Not every organization requires a dedicated team or virtual team to help meet its strategic needs. In your RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed) template, list the core accountabilities of the strategy, and identify the person on your team who will be accountable for each. If one person will take on all of those accountabilities, simple replace “cloud strategy” with that person’s name in the RACI template.

• Step 1: Determine whether a cloud strategy team is needed

  Deliverables: Determine whether your business requires a cloud strategy team

• Step 2: Establish the cloud strategy team

  Deliverables: Identify the appropriate organizations or individuals who are willing to share in the accountability and responsibility for driving the cloud adoption strategy.

• Step 3: Establish a cadence

  Deliverables: Review suggested meeting cadences and schedule meetings with all strategy team participants.

• Step 4: Establish a motivation-driven strategy

  Deliverables: Record motivations in the strategy and plan template.

• Step 5: Establish business outcomes

  Deliverables:

  • Identify at least one expected business outcome per member of the cloud strategy team.
  • Refine the list of members to align expected time commitments with expected outcomes.
  • Align on a set of short-term and mid-term metrics to support ongoing progress reports.

• Step 6: Decide whether to proceed or cancel based on the business justification

  Deliverables:

  • Kick off the business justification effort with your supporting teams.
  • Meet with the supporting teams monthly (or as needed) until the strategy team can align on a go/no go decision to proceed with cloud adoption.

• Step 7: Support adoption through a regular cadence

  Deliverables:

  • Prioritization: When the existing digital estate is rationalized, the strategy team helps establish waves of migration or innovation priorities.
  • Evaluate risks: As cloud adoption grows, new forms of adoption expose new risks. The strategy team is responsible for helping evaluate those new risks.
  • Review budget and spend: As cloud adoption increases, so will budgets for various workloads in the portfolio.
  • Business planning: When the adoption teams complete their migration or innovation efforts, additional business planning will be required to maximize return from the new technology solutions.
  • Executive support: Cloud adoption will result in organizational change. This is most visible within the IT organization.

cloud adoption team

Cloud adoption teams are the modern-day equivalent of technical implementation teams or project teams. The nature of the cloud might require more fluid team structures.

Some cloud adoption teams focus exclusively on cloud migration, and others focus on innovations that take advantage of cloud technologies. Some teams include the broad technical expertise that’s required to complete large adoption efforts, such as a full datacenter migration, and others have a tighter technical focus. As cloud adoption expands, customers benefit from a team that’s dedicated to the cloud platform function.

• Step 1: Determine the type of adoption team you need

  The types of adoption:

  • Migration of existing workloads
  • Modernization of existing workloads and assets
  • Architectural change to existing workloads and assets
  • Development of new workloads

  Deliverables:

  • Determine whether the team aligns better with the Migrate methodology or the Innovate methodology.
  • Each methodology has a four-step onboarding experience to help the team understand the tools and processes required to get really good at that effort.
  • Align responsibilities across teams by developing a cross-team matrix that identifies responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed (RACI) parties.

• Step 2: Align your team with other supporting teams

  Deliverables:

  • Review design guidance, operational baselines, policies, and processes from the various supporting teams to understand the guardrails that have been established for guiding cloud adoption.
  • Review the guidance with other cloud adoption teams to understand any limitations you might encounter as a result of those guardrails.

• Step 3: Begin your adoption journey

  Deliverables:

  • Become increasingly better at delivering on the methodology associated with your adoption approach.
  • Support other teams in the completion of their accountable steps, even if those steps are blockers to your adoption efforts.

• Step 4: Expand your skills with scenarios and best practices

  Deliverables:

  • Increase skills and experience to address more complex adoption scenarios.

• Step 5: Build a cloud adoption factory

  Deliverables:

  • Improve delivery processes to create a highly optimized adoption factory.

cloud governance team

A cloud governance team ensures that cloud-adoption risks and risk tolerance are properly evaluated and managed. The team identifies risks that can’t be tolerated by the business, and it converts risks into governing corporate policies.

• Step 1: Determine whether a cloud governance team is needed

  Deliverables:

  • Determine whether you need a cloud governance team.
  • Align responsibilities across teams by developing a cross-team matrix that identifies responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed (RACI) parties.

• Step 2: Align with other teams

  Deliverables:

  • Discuss current-state implementation and ongoing adoption plans with each team.

• Step 3: Establish a cadence with other teams

  Deliverables:

  • Establish a cadence with the supporting teams. If possible, align that cadence with release and planning cycles.
  • Establish a separate cadence directly with the cloud strategy team (or various team members) to review risks that are associated with the next wave of adoption and gauge the team’s level of tolerance for those risks.

• Step 4: Review the methodology

  Deliverables:

  • Gain an understanding of the methodology, approach, and implementation that supports the Govern methodology.

• Step 5: Complete the governance benchmark

  Deliverables:

  • Complete the governance benchmark assessment, based on conversations with various stakeholders. Or ask other teams to complete the assessment on their own.

• Step 6: Implement the initial governance best practice and configuration

  Deliverables:

  • Deploy the basic governance tools and organization configurations that are required to govern the environment during the next few waves of adoption efforts.

• Step 7: Continuously improve governance maturity

  Deliverables:

  • Implement governance improvements to guard against changing risks and governance needs.

cloud operations team

An operations team focuses on monitoring, repairing, and remediating issues related to traditional IT operations and assets. In the cloud, many of the capital costs and operations activities are transferred to the cloud provider, giving IT operations the opportunity to improve and provide significant additional value.

• Step 1: Determine whether a cloud operations team is needed

  Deliverables:

  • Determine whether you need a cloud operations team.
  • Align responsibilities across teams by developing a cross-team matrix that identifies responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed (RACI) parties.

• Step 2: Align with other teams

  Deliverables:

  • Discuss current-state implementation and ongoing adoption plans with each team.

• Step 3: Establish a cadence with other teams

  Deliverables:

  • Establish a cadence with the supporting teams. If possible, align that cadence with release and planning cycles.
  • Establish a separate cadence directly with the cloud strategy team or its various team members to review any operational requirements that are associated with the next wave of adoption.

• Step 4: Review the methodology

  Deliverables:

  • Gain an understanding of the methodology, approach, and implementation that supports the Manage methodology.

• Step 5: Implement the operations baseline

  Deliverables:

  • Deploy the basic Azure server-management configurations that are required for operating the environment during the next few waves of adoption efforts.

• Step 6: Align business commitments

  Deliverables:

  • Document the expectations of business stakeholders.
  • Determine whether advanced operations are required for specific workloads or platforms.

• Step 7: Operations maturity

  Deliverables:

  • Improve operations maturity to support commitments to business stakeholders.

• Step 8: Scale operations consistency through governance

  Deliverables:

  • Help the cloud governance team implement new requirements for resource consistency.

• Step 9: Adoption handoffs

  Deliverables:

  • Regularly review and accept handoffs from cloud adoption teams.

MVP - team structure

This proven approach is considered a minimum viable product (MVP), because it might not be sustainable. Each team wears many hats, as outlined in the RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed) charts.

Cloud adoption team

This team is accountable for technical solutions, business alignment, project management, and operations for the solutions that are adopted.

Cloud governance team

To balance the cloud adoption team, a cloud governance team is dedicated to ensuring excellence in the solutions that are adopted. The cloud governance team is accountable for platform maturity, platform operations, governance, and automation.

-	Cloud adoption team	Cloud governance team
Solution delivery	Accountable	Consulted
Business alignment	Accountable	Informed
Change management	Accountable	Informed
Solution operations	Accountable	Informed
Governance	Consulted	Accountable
Platform maturity	Consulted	Accountable
Platform operations	Consulted	Accountable
Platform automation	Informed	Accountable

• Accountable: The one person or team to be held accountable for results and outcomes
  
• Responsible: Any people or teams who are responsible for contributing to the results and outcomes
  
• Consulted: People or teams who should be consulted prior to changes being implemented
  
• Informed: People or teams who should be informed about changes