This document summarizes 10 best practices for enterprises undergoing cloud transformation programs to avoid getting stalled in their progress. It notes that many programs experience prolonged stalls around 20% adoption as they transition from early adopters to the early majority. The best practices draw parallels between product adoption lifecycles and enterprise cloud adoption, noting that overcoming the stall requires recognizing when approaches that worked for innovators no longer apply to the early majority. It recommends conducting workshops to understand the early majority's needs, prioritizing reference projects they can relate to, changing team incentives and communications to appeal to them, and automating processes to scale beyond initial manual efforts.

1. © 2016, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Keep Cloud Transformation on Track
Ten Best Practices to Avoid or Break Through
a Stalled Cloud Transformation Program
July 28, 2016
Biff Gaut, AWS Solutions Architect

2. What to expect from the session
• Learn from research done by AWS Professional
Services to understand why many enterprise cloud
transformation programs stall in the field
• Discuss 10 best practices shared by enterprises
who were able to break through the stall

3. Most transformation programs
will stall in the field

4. Stall [stawl] verb
1.1 stop or cause to stop making
progress
1.2 (of a motor vehicle or its engine) stop
running, typically because of an overload
on the engine

5. What we would like to see in a cloud
adoption…
growth
time

6. accelerate
through the
stall
10%
experience a
prolonged stall
at around 20%
adoption
70%
never
recover
20%

7. What we actually saw from Global Enterprises
* Cheerio Score is used as
a proxy for growth rates
that hold price drops and
revenue outliers constant
CUSTOMER 1 CUSTOMER 2 CUSTOMER 3 CUSTOMER 4
0
20
40
60
80
100
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25
CUSTOMER 5 CUSTOMER 6 CUSTOMER 7
0
20
40
60
80
100
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25
0
20
40
60
80
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25
0
20
40
60
80
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25
0
20
40
60
80
100
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25
STALLED 20 MONTHS
STALLED 9 MONTHS STALLED 18 MONTHS STALLED 12 MONTHS STALLED 25 MONTHS
STALLED 15 MONTHS STALLED 10 MONTHS

8. That’s hundreds of
millions of dollars in
delayed transformation
each year

9. What if you could
escape the stall?

10. https://www.flickr.com/photos/japokskee/
Good news!
There are proven tools
we can use

12. MARKETSATURATION
S-curves are a natural law of product markets

13. S-curves are made up of groups of buyers

14. These groups share buying goals and buying
behaviors

15. Because of the differences between buying
groups…

16. The Chasm!
(This is the big one)
Crack 2
Crack 1
… several crises emerge in the process

17. The Chasm
Occurs because Early Adopters and
Early Majority are so different

18. Early Adopters
• It is new to the market
• It is the fastest product
• It is the easiest to use
• It has elegant architecture
• It has unique functionality
What they want is different
Early Majority
• It is the de facto standard
• It has the largest installed
base
• It has most third-party
supporters
• It has great support
• It has low cost of ownership

19. What does all this mean for you?

20. The Great Stall is actually
Moore’s Chasm!

21. Managers in enterprises behave the
same as consumers in consumer
markets

22. Accelerating through the Great Stall
is the same as Crossing the Chasm

23. 10 things you need to do differently
in your cloud transformation
program…

24. Admit you’ve got a problem
01 Next step
What made your change initiative successful thus far
is not relevant for the next stage in adoption.
Do a Lean UX user persona workshop to understand
the Early Majority in your enterprise.

25. Change and give incentives to team members
02 Next step
Your cloud enablement team is likely full of innovators,
led by an early adopter, and very poachable.
Bring in new team members who can open doors into the
Early Majority market, bring key supplementary skills, and
provide lots of positive reinforcement.

26. Identify the beachhead
03 Next step
You need a strategic market entry project that you can
complete. Your victory will impress follow-on Early
Majority buyers.
Do a beachhead analysis workshop to develop your
decision rubric and analyze the context.

27. Identify the bowling pins
04 Next step
Don’t boil the ocean. It’s about momentum, not
volume.
Reuse your beachhead decision rubric, and run a
bowling pin analysis workshop.

28. Reposition/recommunicate
05 Next step
Change the communications script to speak to the
Early Majority psyche.
Adopt a cloud-first strategy led from the top.
Throw out your existing communications plan and
do a new one.

29. Reprioritize the offering
06 Next step
Deliver the product halo and remember that
transformation != migration.
Revisit your MVP and start to experiment again with
the offering, but use a new group of target
customers.

30. Address the Early Majority org ecosystem
07 Next step
Clear barriers proactively, and don’t bring a knife to a
gunfight—bring in experts here.
Put cloud first into vendor RFPs.
Get on the front foot with finance and financial
reporting, security, legal, and procurement.

31. Be heard and be seen
08 Next step
Communicate wins. And then communicate wins.
After that, communicate wins.
Develop a communications tactical plan that reflects
Early Majority values, and start delivering it.

32. Lead
09 Next step
Leaders must stay engaged and visible. They must
also discipline with carrots and sticks.
Require middle managers to get certified, and
encourage senior managers to set examples by
sitting beside them.

33. Automate
10 Next step
It was fine to do things manually in the early phase,
but that will never scale to thousands of apps.
Get your people trained with DevSecOps and
DevSecOps on AWS. Reuse a Bot Army like GE or a
Simian Army like Netflix.

34. Recap: your actions
1. Admit you have a problem
2. Change the team members
3. Identify the beachhead
4. Identify the bowling pins
5. Reposition
6. Reprioritize the offering
7. Work on the ecosystem
8. Be heard and seen
9. Lead
10. Automate

35. How can AWS help?

36. 01
Consultancy services
Enterprise accelerator
programs

37. 02Leverage customer-to-customer
contacts

38. 03
Broadly train. A few stars
cannot implement an all-in
approach alone.

39. 04Facilitate vendor-to-vendor
collaboration

40. CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTIONS
Book cover Slide: http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Edition-Collins-Business-Essentials-ebook/dp/B00DB3D81G
S-Curve Slide: http://www.technology.org/2013/06/25/the-long-road-for-electric-vehicles/
Lifecycle vis-à-vis s-curve Slide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
Crossing the Chasm Bell Curve & Summary: http://www.slideshare.net/khberglund/crossing-the-chasm-henrik-berglund
D-Day Slide: http://www.uscg.mil/history/articles/h_normandy.asp