I have been helping organisations move to the cloud for a while now. In my first blog post for Cevo, I wanted to share why I believe the Cevo squad delivery model is powerful for helping businesses bridge the skills and technology gap while progressing on their cloud journey.
In my experience, a large part of moving to a cloud operating model is changing your internal organisational ways of working and culture – it’s not just about implementing the tech! In the pre-cloud era, there were longer project ramp up periods which bought leaders time for hiring and skilling up teams for delivery.
This post talks about how IT delivery has changed over time, how having the right skills at the right time is essential for your business, and my observations around how the Cevo squad model can assist you in achieving your business goals.
The journey to a cloud operating model
Traditionally, when a business kicks off a new initiative, there is a period of consultation with IT, procurement processes to follow, workforce planning and aligning of internal teams. This phase focuses on planning rather than delivering actual business value, but it lays the groundwork for approved projects and designs to commence.
When ordering new hardware, it was not uncommon for months to go by before everything was finally delivered, which can then be cabled up to allow the teams to get started on delivery.
With the introduction of virtualisation, these traditional processes mostly transitioned to the new technology. This reduced the time required to start generating business value from months to weeks (if you were lucky!). Requesting a virtual machine (VM) involved filling out a form, which was then sent to various internal teams responsible for allocating network, storage and compute resources. Each team would work to their own timeframes to deliver a working environment to develop the anticipated business solution. However, in many of the organisations I worked with, this process was suboptimal, with much room for improvement. It became evident that changing the technology without modifying the team’s processes and interactions did not deliver the expected business value.
Enter the cloud era. Assuming the organisation already has a well-established and governed cloud presence, this reduced the time required to start creating business value from weeks to hours or, in some cases, minutes. The traditional silos that existed (should) have disappeared, and when you get an AWS account to work in, aside from perhaps some firewall rules or minor network changes, you instantly have the ability to start building.
At Cevo, we work with organisations at varying levels of their cloud adoption journey. Depending on where your organisation sits on this spectrum, you will have unique needs which may or may not be met by your current workforce, depending on how fast you need to move. Traditionally, the delay in equipment delivery allowed time to search for the right skills either externally or through internal training. Alternatively, you had to go to market to hire the right people to even start delivering on your business initiatives. These days, business needs to move fast or be left behind, so having the right skills at the right time, and a can-do organisational culture is crucial. This is where I believe Cevo consultants can help bridge the gap.
Cevo Squads
A Cevo engagement can take many different forms, depending on your business needs. A short advisory engagement may involve reviewing cloud strategy roadmaps, providing architectural advice, or providing more strategic cloud advisory advice to GM or C-level stakeholders. Alternatively, a longer term appointment might be a team augmentation, serving as a temporary or semi-permanent solution while you search for the right people, while still meeting your program’s delivery time objectives.
However, many of our customers find great value in the Cevo squad model, known as CevoFlex. When a CevoFlex squad is engaged on a program of work, you ggain access to a group of consultants with complementary skills to help you achieve your specific business objectives.
Some benefits of the squad engagement model include:
- Working alongside your team during delivery or to kickstart a project, allowing you time to hire skilled individuals for long-term work.
- Continuous knowledge sharing with your internal teams as work progresses
- Demonstrating through actions how a modern project delivery team operates, and help move the needle on internal culture change.
- Ability to leverage a wide network of experienced individuals from Cevo’s sibling companies, D6 and Arinco, to run projects or programs of work. This could include helping to obtain requirements from your teams, building a cloud operating model, or providing support in organisational change management to help your internal teams navigate significant operational change.
- Cevo employees have many opportunities for training and development. The Cevo POD program is one way of supporting this – each Cevon belongs to a POD as an opportunity to mix with other Cevons who they might not work with directly, which allows for collaboration and learning opportunities. More information is available in the video below.
One thing I really love about our team, and have already seen multiple times in my short time here, is the highly collaborative nature of Cevo. When you have a CevoFlex squad delivering for your company, you can be confident the team is well-versed in the latest AWS news and best practices. If they don’t know the answer to a specific problem, they have access to the broader Cevo organisation, or can tap into our strong connections with AWS to find a solution.
Summary
As an AWS Advanced Consulting partner, Cevo boasts a team of AWS experts who possess solid knowledge of the AWS ecosystem, backed by the wider AWS solution architect team. By incorporating our experienced team into your organisation as a CevoFlex squad, including delivery leads and other digital skills from in the broader ecosystem, we can provide innovative, out-of-the-box insights to your specific, long-term strategic goals.
If this sounds like something you are interested in, please contact us and we can have a conversation.
