Things You Learn During A Cloud Migration

Cloud Migration is as ubiquitous, nowadays, as TikTok and cellphones. With an average effort of 6 to 24 months to complete a moderately sized project companies are investing billions of dollars to bring their infrastructure to the modern age. A majority of this investment is in people, the planning, architecting, and testing efforts that are core to migration success.

In this edition of Leadership Learnings, we speak with Paul Meyer , Associate Director of Delivery Management at Signant Health , as he shares leadership and management lessons he’s learned while undertaking one of the most challenging assignments he’s had in this storied career.?

Ferdie: As a person with such technical depth and an impressive stint at Signant Health share with us what you referred to as your “most challenging assignment”.

Paul: Around three years ago, our team achieved a remarkable feat—successfully migrating all on-premises RTSM infrastructure servers and networks to the Azure cloud platform in a challenging year-long project. Timely completion before the COVID era added a layer of significance to what our leaders describe as the most formidable undertaking in their career. This venture required ?balancing of day-to-day responsibilities with planning, resourcing, and executing a testing and validation plan for migrating into the cloud. Nothing of this scale had ever been done before nor something that would so significantly be impacting all live active studies, as well as all those under development. It required the most technically experienced members of technical departments to collaborative plan and problem solving technical and logistic challenges never faced before, specific to the product architecture.

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Ferdie: This sounds like a setup for valuable lessons learned throughout this engagement. If you were to write a book about this experience what five things can you elaborate on that applies broadly, not just to cloud migrations?

Paul: It’s difficult to distill all the learnings from this project but if I were to pick the most relevant ones it would be the following:

1. Setting Realistic Timelines: Setting realistic timelines proved to be a challenging aspect of the project. The lesson learned is the importance of guesstimating, being aggressive in approach, and avoiding a slow-paced progression. Leveraging capacity from billable resources and strategically assessing the available talent pool became crucial to meeting ambitious timelines.
2. Decision-Making and Recommendations: The experience highlighted the challenge of providing decisions and recommendations without a clear understanding of the individuals responsible for execution. The lesson emphasizes the need to proactively identify and assign tasks, ensuring that qualified team members are willing to step out of their comfort zones. Documentation became a key tool, outlining the necessary coverage, timeframes, and test cases for a shared vision to be effectively executed from the top down.
3. Resource Allocation and Efficiency: Achieving cost reductions required identifying the right resources capable of efficiently running studies in a condensed timeframe. The lesson emphasizes the importance of selecting sample studies that offer both breadth and depth for comprehensive validation. The experience served as a turning point, fostering collaboration with other departments and emphasizing the significance of working beyond project managers to include training and documentation teams.
4. Acknowledging Limitations and Drawing Boundaries: Accepting limitations and drawing a line at some point became crucial to realistic goal-setting. The lesson underscores the need to recognize and communicate what can realistically be achieved, avoiding overcommitment. Building trust within the team and identifying individuals genuinely committed to company success, rather than personal interests, was essential, requiring a proactive stance against office politics.
5. Self-Reflection and Continuous Improvement: The experience prompted self-reflection on areas of improvement, acknowledging what could be done better in terms of planning and execution. The lesson emphasizes the importance of recognizing technical debt and the necessity of paying it off, ensuring a more streamlined and efficient process in future endeavors. Continuous improvement became a central theme, encouraging a proactive approach to addressing weaknesses and refining planning strategies for ongoing professional growth.

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Ferdie: Wow! Pause there for a second. For all those aspiring managers who are at the cusp of starting their careers what management advice would you share to help them advance their careers?

Paul: As you navigate your path toward professional growth, especially in the realm of cloud migration, I summarize into this phrase: “Seek Information to Make the Best Decisions.”

Firstly, recognize that you'll be faced with difficult decisions that carry consequences for many. The best decisions stem from the best available information, so it's imperative to gather data, ask questions, conduct thorough research, and leverage available resources.

Don't shy away from making decisions yourself. While it might seem easier to have others decide for you, tough decisions require you to back them up with a hunt for information, considering Pro/Con and For/Against arguments. Confidence in decision-making comes from understanding that there's always new information to factor in, and while tools like ChatGPT can provide insights, the human brain's instincts and analytical capabilities remain unparalleled.

Second, be proactive in seeking information, understanding your options, tendencies, and what you're leaning toward. Base your decisions on likely outcomes and the anticipated costs. Don't fall into the trap of risk assessment being taken for granted; whether you're a Project Manager, Developer, or Data Engineer, ask the tough questions. Despite extensive training, a proper risk assessment requires a deep understanding of potential challenges. Consult with others, as "I did not know that" should never be an excuse.

There you have it! Decision-making, Self-reflection, and Being Realistic are core principles that Paul and all aspiring managers must embody to achieve great leadership.