While cloud computing is viewed as a revolutionary technology-based trend within the computer industry, it is also having major implications from a talent management perspective on the IT departments that are trying to successfully implement it.
And this is regardless of whether applications are kept in-house or not, as private cloud computing initiatives implemented within the firewall bring with them new technologies, datacenter and application development philosophies, staff training requirements, and organisational changes, while outsourcing activities to cloud-based providers can cause a dramatic shift in both the number and the skill set composition of the IT department.
Given these realities, I continuously find myself stressing the need for businesses across the Middle East to fully comprehend the ramifications that cloud computing initiatives can have on IT organisational design and staff development. Indeed, it is critical that they understand the transformations that are needed within the IT team in relation to the work performed, the skill sets required, and the increase in IT-user interactions.
But how can all of this be achieved without the anticipated benefits of a proposed cloud-based initiative being overshadowed before they’ve even had a chance to see the light of day?
When considering a business’s existing technical infrastructure, the current organisational design and workforce skills are paramount to defining a coherent strategic plan, and the initial vision should be unencumbered by the organisation’s current situation. So first off, the business should look to define a long-term cloud computing vision without giving strong consideration to the current internal IT department. This may sound unrealistic from a technical perspective and cold from a humanistic perspective, but it will help provide a clearer picture when considering what’s best for the company in terms of its cloud computing strategy.
With this ideal vision in mind, the next step is to ground it in reality by evaluating the existing technical infrastructure and formulating a high-level cloud computing strategic plan based on security considerations, company direction, and other appropriate factors. At this point, I recommend dividing the cloud-based vision into two categories — technologies built internally and used within the firewall, and external cloud-based vendor services that need to be purchased.
This distinction must be performed before assessing the staffing needs because of the dramatically different skill sets required when employing these two alternatives. Building internal technologies within the firewall requires highly trained software and data architects, Java or. NET programmers, and an array of other technical skills. Purchasing external cloud-based vendor services requires data architects to ensure the proper flow of data, security analysts, business analysts, and vendor management for support, as well as other related staff members.
With this conceptual plan and cloud categorisation in place, the next step is to assess the ramifications of this plan on organisational design, the required human resources, and the necessary skill sets. The reason for waiting until this point to consider staffing and skills requirements is because each cloud-based decision has its own specific staffing implications. For example, if a decision is made to move from an Outlook Exchange server inside the firewall to Outlook 365 hosted by Microsoft, this frees up the existing Outlook Exchange team to perform other tasks.
A successful skills gap assessment will typically require the organisation’s IT leader to define the skill sets needed to perform each new cloud-based task and document the individual skill sets of each displaced employee. I advise businesses to then assess the skills transferability of each displaced employee in regard to the required skills sets and create a detailed retraining plan that provides just-in-time training as employees are displaced by one cloud initiative so that they can be used to help implement the next.
With the cloud-based vision, strategic plan, and talent management plan in place, the next step is to begin executing the plan. At this point, it is critical that the plan is clearly articulated, because the absence of an articulated vision can lead to conjecture among staff, which ultimately wastes time, increases uncertainty, and hurts morale. To this end, I also advise organisations to undertake specific efforts to monitor the morale of those team members not directly involved in new initiatives, as these employees may feel left out and/or in fear of being phased out as new cloud technologies are introduced.
In that regard, it can often be beneficial to simultaneously provide continual live and on-demand training to all IT employees on general cloud computing issues and the specific cloud technologies being used within your organisation. This approach helps demystify cloud technologies for those not yet working on cloud-based initiatives, demonstrates the organisation’s willingness to train and include all IT staff in the overall transition to cloud, and provides preliminary cloud training to individuals that will eventually be required to retrain as the strategic plan moves forward.
The talent management issues created by cloud computing can be formidable. Indeed, I have seen the introduction of cloud computing result in displaced workers, internal IT reorganisations, technological ‘haves’ and ‘have notes’, training challenges, and resource shortages as staff are spread too thin trying to maintain existing production systems while they focus on building the next-generation computing platform.
Fortunately, however, as daunting as these challenges may at first appear, they are also perfectly manageable. But for organisations to succeed in this regard, they must engage in proper forethought and planning and never, ever lose sight of their most important asset — their people.
— The columnist is group vice president and regional managing director for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey at global ICT market intelligence and advisory firm International Data Corporation (IDC).
