Cloud ROI

Yes, there is a problem counting ROI in Cloud computing as Joe McKendrick (@joemckendrick) tell in the post Cloud Computing's ROI Increasingly Elusive, Survey Finds out on Forbes but I will continue to count value, not just numbers all the time. To be able to count value we have to understand Cloud computing and why it should be considered and planned for at the upper levels.

Short break out from Joe McKendricks post:

"Perhaps it’s a result of cloud becoming so tightly interwoven with the business that the potential results may be more far-reaching than a single process or two. Or, perhaps, cloud adoption and usage is expanding deeper into business operations at a faster pace than

My Cloud 2013 predictions

My Cloud 2013 predictions is out on Newvem: The Cloud is dead! Long live the Cloud!

Short break out:

• We don’t see cloud as a problem. You adopt a cloud service if it fits your business. You install a system/application as part of your on-premise solution if it fits your business. You make them work together; there are some orchestrating apps and people for that.
• It’s not an internal love affair between cloud service providers. It’s not even a love affair between cloud service providers and engaged IT Pros, evangelists, and journalists anymore. A sweet lasting smell of love is obviously starting to arise between cloud services and IT departments and non-IT business people.
• The transfer of legacy

Collection 2 of great posts

It's time for my second collection of great posts. These four are, according to me, connected to each other in two ways: career and orchestration. I will link each post up, give you a short break out and add a short comment of mine.

First, when reading; think about how you can be a part of future IT, in the cloud, in hybrid solutions. Customers, whether to an IT department an ITO, MSP or appl operator,  need support from someone they can trust, their IT need to be orchestrated not only techy, its needed to be orchestrated on all levels

A collection of comments

This is a collection of the comments I've posted today on a couple of sites. Most important one is No. 3. It's time we put pressure and demand true professionalism. New business opportunity in No. 2 - go ahead, time for action.

Comment 1: Commented: Employees Engage in Rogue Cloud Use Regardless of Security Policies

Comment 2: David Linthicums 'Cloud computing: The semi-secret economic equalizer' 

Comment 3: My long comment to: CIOs Say Corporate Directors Are Clueless About IT

Enjoy!

My long comment to: CIOs Say Corporate Directors Are Clueless About IT

Read the post CIOs Say Corporate Directors Are Clueless About IT by Kim S. Nash on CIO a couple of days ago. And it made me bit upset.

Short breakout:

Even as companies are relying more on technology to come up with innovative business models and fresh ideas for finding new revenue, many boards of directors don't understand enough about IT to keep up. Few CIOs sit on boards and, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, just 1 percent of directors have any technology background at all.

'The future role of the CIO: trusted advisor, or...?'

My new post The future role of the CIO: trusted advisor, or...? is out on Outsourcing Magazine.

Short breakout:

"My humble opinions and questions: if you’re the outermost responsible for a department, area or the whole company as part of the management group, whom will you advise? To advise the board is seldom popular. To advise managers within the department/area is teamworking and management. To discuss and advise to this and that within the I-area with the rest of the CxOs is business as usual. A trusted advisor is someone who knows what’s best for you, a company, your business or responsibilities. It’s not a mentor but still a “professional friend”: a “professional friend” who’s not gaining from the advice more than the salary he/she gets to advise. The trusted advisor can be an internal or external person and higher or lower in rank. The relation can be formal or informal. The key is to give advice a client can trust."

Agree or disagree? Care and dare to discuss?

'The DNA of Product Management' by Hunter Walk

Today I read the excellent post The DNA of Product Management on LinkedIn by Hunter Walk, Director Product Management at Google.

I really think this one is important for Product Managers but especially for the Management team and, to bad, even sometimes to board members.

I copy three important paragraphs from Hunter Walk's post:

"2) Seek collaboration, not necessarily consensus

My comment to 'Cloud: disruptive good, disruptive bad'

My comment to the post 'Cloud: disruptive good, disruptive bad' by Phil Wainewright on ZDNet.

Short break out from Phil's post:

"With cloud, the tables have finally turned on the technologists. Adoption of cloud in the enterprise is disruptive in a bad way for IT and in a good way for business. For everyone in IT, it means radical changes to working practices and learning many new skillsets, while existing skills become redundant, sometimes overnight. Today’s old-fashioned jobs are in fields such as database administration, server management and systems integration, with many organisations handing over those tasks wholesale to cloud providers who can automate them at scale. While IT suffers, the business finds cloud brings vastly improved productivity to existing skills while adding huge new opportunities for innovation and business development."

My comment to the post, or rather my comment to the post and the comments:

+ the Cloud LESS control button



Success in cloud adoption; let go of detailed control.

A fact is that IT as a Service keeps taking market shares. The services are delivered as traditional SaaS, from a Managed- / Service Provider or as cloud services. We see growths in areas like IaaS and especially PaaS when application providers and vendors put applications in the cloud. But the speed is not what many expect. What’s causing this? I’ve been doing some thinking.


Shoe service description and SLA? This + brand, store and receipt is my agreement for buying a shoe. The agreement should also guarantee my choices: no children, environment-friendly transportations etc. If textile inside it doesn’t meet SLA I will return it. I shouldn’t care about transportation, logistics, sewing machines etc. IT is far more complicated but principle is the same.

Why why why?

Why is there always short, not so well explained, comments like "it's not secure enough" when someone push for adopting cloud services?

Yes;
- There are issues / concerns like security, service levels, laws etc
- Users might not think about all the above

But;
None of these are insurmountable issues!

You can read tons of posts telling you what to think about. Isn't this one of the IT departments' key assignments; to find out what to adopt, how to adopt and when to adopt in a secure and good way to meet business needs?

Comment to @DavidLinthicums post 'Employees get the cloud, but IT -- not so much'

David Linthicum (@DavidLinthicums) published the post 'Employees get the cloud, but IT -- not so much' on InfoWorld about that IT departments are slow in the adoption of cloud services. I think this a very interesting topic to discuss more. IT have to less conservative in their mind, it's not good for business - it's time for change.

Short break out:

"As in the case of most productive uses of new technology, such as the rise of the PC, the rise of the Web, the rise of mobile devices, and now the rise of the cloud, employees will drive ahead first. IT will follow. Call me crazy, but I think it should be the other way around."

BYOD-commented...I couldn't resist

Sorry, but I couldn't resist to comment another BYOD-post. Why? Because it was really good and spot on it why BYOD, not consumerization, might not be thats success everyone's buzzing about.

The post: 'BYOD: Good for whom exactly?' by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols on Computerworld.

Short breakout:

"It would be one thing if companies paid for users' personal equipment and services, but I really fear BYOD is becoming just another way to shift costs off the company budget and onto employee's backs. Worse still, I can see BYOD actually blocking people from being hired.

So, even though I'm a BYOD user through and through, I can't really get behind the idea that BYOD is that great an idea for everyone."

My comment:

First; great read.

 

I’ve promised myself to not comment or write any more “negative” posts about BYO. I don’t want to become the “old grumpy guy”, but BYO has become my windmill (Don Quijote) for the moment. But finally I’ve found some guys who been doing some thinking, beyond the possibility. My point is that almost everyone points to the choice of freedom but never takes the time to think of the possible consequences of implementing a BYO-program.

 

My biggest concern is when the possibility becomes a demand. When the employer demands you to bring a device and the different between keeping the job is a golden support contract connected to the device.

 

I’m pro consumerization and evolution but I’m not that keen to BYO. Instead of a BYO I think companies should consider to implement a wider device policy a CYO (Choose Your Own)-program where employees can choose from a ending list of devices (smartphones, pads, PC, Mac etc.).

 

If you want to read more about my BYOD opinions you can find them on inmaxmind.com. Latest post is the “Last windmill attack!”. But it seems it didn’t become the last one… I couldn’t resist… ;)

 

Short break out from “Last windmill attack!”:

 

“My biggest concerns with BYOD are:

- When it becomes an employer demand that you should bring it and no longer is a possibility.

- Who are able to bring their devices – “the cool guys”?

- Will the support contract connected to your device be equal to keeping your employment or not?

- The IMHO administrative mess.

- Why people should bring devices. Don’t employers earn the money to provide it, isn’t that included in budget? Shouldn’t then the employer get paid and the company board higher the company revenue demand?

 

With these bullets I stop the main attack. But please keep them in mind.Other people’s concerns seems to be more at risks like management systems, company data access on private devices and how to access the company services. My opinion; these are all techniques and policies issues which can be solved.”

Last windmill attack!

If you’ve been following me you most probably noticed I’m not that keen to BYOD. You then also know I written a 3 step BYOD-story and commented every BYOD post I’ve met.


I’m getting a bit tired of myself in this subject know so I won’t write another article in my “crusade”, my attack against thee windmill BYOD. So this will be my last windmill attack (Don Quijote). I might comment some posts though.

In this last post attacking BYOD I will also defend it.

My biggest concerns with BYOD are:

'Outsourcing – Is it an Advantage or a Disadvantage?'

Read a short post about advantages vs disadvantages of outsourcing which I of course commented. One of the reasons I started to blog was to tell stories about outsourcing and the importency to choose wisely once the decision is taken.

Short break out:

"Outsourcing can be both beneficial and non-beneficial depending on your reason why you choose to outsource. To begin with outsourcing, according to Wikipedia, “is the process of contracting a business function to someone else”. But why outsource if the job can be done in your own company by your own employees? Therefore, the reason behind outsourcing plays a vital role in the decision to avail of services outside the company."

My comment:

'Think the cloud will cut your IT costs? Not so fast, say CIOs'

Wise article on TechRepublic by Nick Heath 'Think the cloud will cut your IT costs? Not so fast, say CIOs'.

Short break out:

"Listen to the hype about cloud computing and you’d think it provides a quick fix for the CIO who needs to cut costs in a hurry.
And while its on-demand model offers the promise of reduced spend and freeing the IT team from the drudgery of looking after physical infrastructure, CIOs remain wary about getting carried away chasing savings in the cloud."

My comment:

'Businesses Don't Fail - Leaders Do' by Mike Myatt

Friday the 13th tomorrow. As with the post #CloudWisdom 13 you get luck.

Salute to the post 'Businesses Don't Fail - Leaders Do' by Mike Myatt (@mikemyatt) on Forbes.com. It's great check list for all:

- Board members analyzing their appointed management team.
- Employees evaluating its employer.
- Customers evaluating its providers.
- CxO's and management teams to verify their management.

Short break out:

"Why do businesses fail? If you’re willing to strip away all the excuses, explanations, rationalizations, and justifications for business failures, and be really honest in your analysis, you’ll find only one plausible reason -poor leadership. I’ve often said that real leaders refuse to take the credit for success, but they will always accept responsibility for failures. Harsh? Yes; but it goes with the territory."

I would say you could fail in only a few...if any...

Enjoy a really good read.

#CloudWisdom 12

CIO is one of the key positions in cloud adoption.

Strenghten your CIO's position in the management group. Support is needed from the IT operations department, the management group and the organisation. You won't succed in cloud if you don't translate tech to business and business to tech.

About the vehemence...

I’ve been thinking more about the Kusnetzky-post and my earlier comments posted on ZDNet and as a post on In Max Mind.

What is the vehemence really about?

Is it so that technicians know something about security, availability, consequences that the management level doesn’t know or understand? If so; please tell us. Also tell the cloud technicians so they can build good, secure, reliable and available services.

Is it so that technicians don’t want to kill their darlings? No, or at least I want to think a modern technician don’t have problem doing that. Technicians are normally eager to find the best solution. And todays technician are skilled to give and take help from colleagues, update and read knowledge bases etc to find a fast, good and the best solution to an issue or need.

At the same time; are the management level too eager to save money and doesn’t see the problem integrations and federation might cause, also the talent of orchestration it takes provide services from different sources or vendors. On top of this the concerns about security.

But really, why would companies like IBM and Microsoft go for the cloud if it wasn’t good? Because of Google? Don’t think so. Google is very much a threat to them. But nor Google, Microsoft or IBM are fools, nor the people working there. Of course they will do the very best, like the IT department, to bring good IT-services to their customers. And they are quite competent companies…

I think you as an IT department should think about cloud as one way of delivering good IT services to your business. Not the only way but definitely one way. You have to adopt the ones suiting your business even if you could build it yourself. There will be a break between IT departments and management level if IT departments only plays defense. The management level will always win and might choose the wrong (a non-suitable) cloud service if the IT department doesn’t act as advisors and take responsibility.

As I commented to the Kusnetzky-post; the CIO role is so important. CIO’s should be given a strong position in the C-series. The management group should give the best support to the CIO. Also the IT department should give the very best support to the CIO. Trim the processes to find the best and fastest way to benchmark and qualify services to your solution.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable if letting the management team buy services. The management team know how to make business. The IT department should support them in this and bring IT to the best value (price, quality, availability). Start adopting when it’s good.

Comment to the last post

Hopefully my comment won't disappear now. If, here you go:

"Thanks for a good read. I so agree.

Reproduced and a bit changed (my first one disappeared):

Of course there are concerns about security, who to blame if it fails etc. And no doubt; cloud services should be secure, reliable and available. But my opinion is that cloud won't get people out of work. It's not like the IT is a decreasing market. Technicians are so needed even if adopting cloud services. We should see it as a possibility to evolve; it might end up in a different direction and role. Companies need to have technical experts, they need policies and trusted advisors, and they need orchestrators to wrap up the complete IT delivery.

It seems like discussions often end up in two teams; the tech team vs the management team. We have to silo and come closer; business to tech and tech to business. Just look at the change of the CIO-role the filter to tech and business. CIOs has an important role, has to be strong and should focus to meet the core business needs to a given budget. Some services will be cloud, and some not.

Cloud is in some way a change in IT delivery and we have to adopt some the services sooner or later, or maybe sooner than later.

Fighting a good reliable, secure and available solution is good. Fighting cloud just because you dont like it or just love the way you designed it might be read like retrogressive.

Also; think about working at a cloud service provider quite techy indeed."