As cloud computing continues to develop into the inevitable future, it’s playing a big role on a particular area – your IT department.
Every day those CIOs not investing in developing the skills of their workforce are risking being outsourced completely to third party services providers.
This is called Shadow IT and it’s when departments outside of IT use budget to implement a third party software product without IT’s approval or knowledge. So as a CIO, how can you combat this?
How To Prepare Your IT Team For Cloud Computing
First, work with your infrastructure and operations teams. Get them comfortable with the cloud and using it. Do an internal audit and see which departments are using what, then bring your I&O team up to speed on how they can support.
Having employees who are educated and trained on the latest and greatest can prevent your team from hitting the curb. Because if your IT team can’t figure it out, your fast-paced sales teams will find someone who can.
That’s why second, you need to position yourself and your team as an evolving one. You’re here to learn, collaborate, and improve the user interfaces of your outdated systems by using the cloud’s quick deployment advantages.
This is where the third reason comes in. It’s not going to be an easy journey, but start working right away on developing new processes that are easy to manage. It isn’t just the technology that’s changing, so is the workforce. Millennials like me don’t want to be bothered with 12 steps if we have a friend at a start-up that can do it in 5.
Now, as CIO you have the ability, if executed strategically, to become one of the most sought-out internal consultants, as well as gain some serious C-suite street cred. You must ensure you are walking the talk, especially when it comes to collaboration. Make sure you’re ready to share the IT decision making.
According to a Forbes article by Keith Engelbert, “As companies increasingly store more data in the cloud, more C-level executives and senior-level decision makers will also have access to corporate data in the cloud, which in turn will increase their influence with IT decisions that pertain to the cloud.”
So in summary,
- Share
- Play together nicely
- Educate yourself and your team
- Continue to develop your skills
Sounds more like lessons in life than in cloud computing, but hey – some things are universal.
Did I forget anything? Please let me know by commenting on this post or let’s continue the conversation on Twitter@LindseyNNelson