May  03,  2018

It seems like every organization is headed to the Cloud. If your organization is not there yet, it soon will be. As a change management professional, you might be responsible for helping them get there. One of the best ways you can help your organization get ready for its Cloud journey is to help prepare its resources. Consider a Cloud Bootcamp training approach.

If your organization is like most, they will probably take small steps to migrate systems to the Cloud. Because all systems won’t go at the same time, you can focus on the impacted parts of the business before their migrations. Consider creating a three-day Bootcamp training session designed for business unit migration teams. It’s called Bootcamp for a reason – like the military, everyone takes it to learn the basics…the things they must know to get started.

The migration teams might consist of technical resources (e.g., developers) and non-technical/business resources (e.g., product owners, business analysts, etc.). The Bootcamp will get the right people up to speed on cloud fundamentals and any organization-specific information you need the team to know.

Bootcamp topics might include:
  • Cloud Fundamentals – IaaS
  • Cloud Fundamentals – PaaS
  • Database Migrations

Cloud fundamentals typically include a lot of technical information so of course it’s important that technical team members attend. But it’s also important that the non-technical members to take the training. Business resources and supervisors are responsible for growing organization capability. The first step is to understand what the organization will be responsible for in the new cloud environment- this will help them make decisions after the migration. Make sure at least one training module gives an overview for non-technical team members.

Use your application migration plan to determine who needs to go through the Bootcamp and when. Since this a new journey for your organization, consider hiring consultants who are cloud experts to develop and deliver the training. Use a train-the-trainer approach and spend the first few conducts getting your people (who will eventually act as trainers) smart.  Those individuals can begin by acting as secondary instructors…and eventually lead the Bootcamp.  At that point, you can release your external experts and use your new internal capability.

Most technology training efforts cover a four-to-six-week period, so be prepared for the Bootcamp to span months, if necessary. Good luck and see you on The Cloud!