Many companies have spent 2016 deciding whether or not to utilise the benefits of the cloud. No doubt, you may have started 2017 with the same question lingering. Leave the decision til after the holidays they said…
However, whilst the cloud seems like all the craze at the moment, it doesn’t mean that you should race to get every part of your business onto the cloud.
Establish what’s moving
You should start by establishing a list of applications that would benefit from going on the cloud. Be strategic with your decision and put a list together to get an idea of what would work better on the cloud and the benefits you see from having it on there.
Do a quick checklist audit of your processes and try establish a hierarchy of importance for the applications that are critical to your business and would greatly benefit by being on the cloud.
Get a project manager
A good project manager can be very helpful in keeping to budgets and timelines. Business can often throw themselves into a project and eat up a lot of their resources with a project that never seems to end. Costs escalate and inefficient processes remain until the replacement arrives. A project manager can help manage that. They’ll managed the resources required to make the implementation happen and ensures that your business sticks to a plan, or at least have a well thought out contingency in place.
Make sure you have the people
Many cloud projects fall victim to not having enough resources or qualified personnel to pull them off. As there is a shortage of qualified candidates in the cloud sector at the time of writing, it could take hire someone internally.
Don’t overlook the option of outsourcing and finding an external contractor if it would speed up the time. It’s better to get something moving than not at all whilst waiting for that perfect candidate to walk in.
Even after implementation, you still need someone to manage and maintain your cloud.
Failure does mean a failed project
Even with the best project managers, plans can deviate and timelines are not met, but this can go both ways. It’s unrealistic to expect things to go smoothly first time, especially if this is your first cloud project. Some tasks may hit unexpected forks in the road and take longer than expected. In some situations, you may even find that something is more straightforward than planned, and the process took much less time.
The most important element to good project management is to ensure that people are kept up to date with the progress. Don’t try to tackle potential road blocks on your own, everyone is on the same boat, and certainly don’t leave things til the last minute for people to discover issues on their own accord. The key to successful implementation is good communication with the team and the rest of the company.
