Aligning cloud adoption with business outcomes, organizational capabilities, and governance through a CCoE

This post is part two of a four-part series that addresses how a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) can be a viable solution to address the challenges of digital transformation. Part one focused on what a CCoE is and how it, combined with the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF), can help your enterprise with its digital transformation. Part two focuses on the three nontechnical perspectives of the AWS CAF. Part three addresses the three technical perspectives of the AWS CAF. And part four discusses a framework for defining organizational areas of responsibility.

Successful cloud transformations require a holistic approach that goes beyond just the technical aspects. The AWS CAF provides a comprehensive framework to guide organizations, covering the business, organizational, and governance perspectives. A CCoE is the organizational body that brings together people, processes, and technology to guide an organization through its cloud adoption journey. It serves as a central hub to drive cloud adoption, establish best practices, and enable better governance and business outcomes.

We recommend that organizations take a crawl, walk, run approach to their cloud adoption. This approach breaks down the cloud journey into three distinct phases, allowing organizations to transition to the cloud in a structured and incremental manner.

Business perspective

The business perspective of the AWS CAF focuses on the strategic alignment and capabilities required to drive successful cloud adoption. Key elements include:

• Business outcomes – Clearly defining the organization’s high-level business objectives, such as revenue growth, cost optimization, or improved customer experience.
• Strategic partnerships – Establishing partnerships with cloud providers, system integrators, and other vendors to access expertise and support.
• Portfolio management – Understanding the existing application and infrastructure portfolio for informed decision-making.
• Intake and prioritization – Defining structured processes to manage and prioritize new cloud workloads.
• Maturity assessment – Regularly evaluating the organization’s cloud maturity to identify gaps and guide the roadmap.

The following diagram illustrates the domains and capabilities that fall into each of the crawl, walk, and run stages for the business perspective.

Figure 1. The crawl, walk, run approach for the business perspective. The illustration highlights which domains and capabilities to undertake at each stage.

Organizational perspective

With the business perspective as a foundation, the CCoE must also address the critical people and organizational elements:

• Executive sponsorship and alignment – Securing buy-in from executives and aligning on the cloud transformation objectives
• Core team and upskilling – Building a dedicated core team and continuously upskilling them
• Organizational structure and roles – Defining a well-structured CCoE with clear roles and responsibilities
• Organizational change and culture – Fostering a culture of cloud adoption through initiatives like communities of practice

The following diagram illustrates the domains and capabilities that fall into each of the crawl, walk, and run stages for the organizational, or people, perspective.

Figure 2. The crawl, walk, run approach for the people perspective. The illustration highlights which domains and capabilities to undertake at each stage.

Governance perspective

Governance is a critical pillar of the AWS CAF and a key responsibility of the CCOE. Key governance capabilities include:

• Cloud financial management:
  • Establishing tagging taxonomies
  • Implementing cost reporting and show-back and chargeback mechanisms
  • Driving cost optimization programs
• Program and project management:
  • Defining intake processes and prioritization frameworks
  • Developing strategic roadmaps for cloud workload deployment
• Account structure and service catalog:
  • Designing the account hierarchy and access controls
  • Curating a self-service cloud service catalog
• Application portfolio management:
  • Maintaining an inventory of cloud-based assets
  • Managing licensing, compliance, and risk for the application portfolio

The following diagram illustrates the domains and capabilities that fall into each of the crawl, walk, and run stages for the governance perspective.

Figure 3. The crawl, walk, run approach for the governance perspective. The illustration highlights which domains and capabilities to undertake at each stage.

Summarized roadmap for the nontechnical perspectives

This post summarizes the crawl, run, walk approach for the business, organizational, and governance perspectives, addressing the most critical nontechnical activities. To help organizations navigate their cloud adoption journey, the CCoE can use a crawl, walk, run approach:

Crawl:

• Establish executive sponsorship and alignment on cloud transformation objectives
• Build a dedicated core team to lead the initial CCoE efforts
• Assess the existing application and infrastructure portfolio
• Define basic cloud financial management and governance processes

Walk:

• Expand the CCoE team with additional roles and responsibilities
• Implement a cloud service catalog and self-service capabilities
• Automate key processes like cost optimization and security controls

Run:

• Establish multifunctional DevOps teams to drive continuous deployment and innovation
• Implement advanced monitoring, observability, and incident response capabilities
• Foster a culture of cloud adoption through communities of practice

By addressing the business, organizational, and governance perspectives and following a structured crawl, walk, run roadmap, the CCOE can make sure that cloud adoption is not just a technology initiative, but a strategic, enterprise-wide transformation that delivers tangible value to the organization.