of their identity. The systems engineer may have been happy in their old job.
They were a subject matter expert, knew where the bodies were buried, and
knew who to go to and how to get things done. That legacy of knowledge may
no longer be important in their new role, leaving them feeling less needed or
important.
The Human Impact
Cloud makes organizations more agile. With cloud, iterations and changes can
occur on a more frequent basis than ever before. This generates huge benefits
for the company as a whole, helping it enter new markets, meet customer
demands better and be more competitive in the marketplace. But these changes
also create human impacts organizations need to address. Changes in job
titles, responsibilities and even hours of work may not happen all at once or
reach all corners of the organization at the same time. But what is certain is
that a transition to cloud will eventually bring about more change.
In the Bridges model, some people do not adapt to change as well as others.
They are reluctant to let go of the past. Organizations need to develop a strat-
egy for them to move to the next phase – the Neutral Zone, where the past is
gone but the new behavior is not yet fully formed. If the person is not embrac-
ing the changes brought about by cloud, leaders should not instantly conclude
that the person does not “get it”; leaders should instead ask themselves whether
they are providing the information and learning resources to help people
through the change.
Managing employees during a cloud transition is about much more than just
learning new technical skills. In the cloud, the entire way things are done is dif-
ferent. Going from a waterfall-type project management model to agile, Scrum,
DevOps and Continuous Delivery represents a totally new way of operating.
Cloud also breaks down silos, requiring employees to work with business units
they may not have interacted with before. Now the employee has to engage in
a cross-functional team with new people and unfamiliar skill sets.
Seventy percent of change initiatives fail because the people part of the equa-
tion is left out. Leaders have to explain clearly to a person that their move to
become a cloud technologist will involve changes in
their work process, title and role in the organiza-
tion. When change happens, the person needs to
know what is changing, how it is changing and why
it is changing. Specifically, employees need to know
what you want them to stop doing, start doing and
continue doing.
Projects have
cutover dates.
People don't.
FALL 2018 | THE DOPPLER | 69