Cloud (but not only) Center of Excellence

Hello, again, folks. I hope that everyone is well and safe, winter has arrived, and by a quick statistic I have made, at least one of you is sick ;)

This article may not be the cure, but it will be beneficial for you to read it as it will give you the perspective of the CCOE #Buzzword.

Let's go back in time and discuss the old fashion COE:

The idea of CoE is aimed at traditional businesses built with various "functions." While this was a reasonable basis for sorting staff into divisions in which specific skills were unique, it led people to "work in silos" or, more plainly put, "one hand not knowing what the other is doing."

A CoE provides coordination and consistency by matching people with different skills and creating a team that can speak authoritatively and with a unified voice. 

Also, When something wrong happens, be sure that they will consult, communicate possible solutions, and implement and communicate approved policies so that everyone knows what to do if a similar situation arises later on.

Please make sure to keep it distinct from customer success teams. 

That's a whole different story. (customer success is more about creating an upsell motion rather than providing a company with comprehensive consultancy.)

The beauty of this is that, although compiling the correct solution to a problem may take some time and several people with varying skills, the ultimate solution incorporates the full range of possible perspectives. It is repeatable when similar issues arise in the future. 

So what is CCOE? You guessed it right, CLOUD Center of Excellence.

The cloud center of excellence brings more mature and up-to-date methodologies. It will utilize the above in some manner but will focus more on the cloud.

I was reading about the entire cloud vendors' suggestions to CCOE, and I believe, at least from my perspective, that eventually, four pillars need to be discussed:

The first pillar - is the product owner: 

The role of the product owner under the CCOE is to take the customers' requirements to the second pillar (which I will explain in the following few lines) and build a solution that will fit the best. The product owner will be the focal point for both sides and responsible for future opportunities, consultancy, implementation, or suggestions. This role is crucial. Also, he must have a customer relationships, sales, and technical skills, as this will create the trust the customer needs. Again, the product owner will represent the customer in a "customer first" mentality.

The second pillar is - the cloud architecture team:

This team will probably contain various functions that should talk in one language, such as but not only: Solution Architects, security, Networking, Applications, FinOps, IOT (Niche), and more. 

The idea here is to get the requirements from the product owner, prepare a high-level design and low-level design, provide the TCO to the product owner so she can prepare an offering to the customer, etc. 

It's super important that the cloud architecture team will be united as a team, they need to work very well together so the culture "challenge" will be embraced, and changes need to be accepted; this is not an easy task, but it crucial for the success of the CCOE.

The third pillar is also the key to success and a very challenging one - the implementation team. 

So once we have a budget and an architecture, we need to decide who will do the hands-on work. It can be a system integrator, it can be the customer itself (if he wants to reduce costs), it can be both of them together (to avoid the "black box"), and it can also be a partner that the customer would like to use, even if you don't know the partner. The idea here is to understand customer preferences as soon as possible because each decision will impact the pricing. Who is responsible for that? You guessed it right, the product owner.

The fourth pillar is support and customer success:

This pillar's idea is to support the customer (if he chooses to) after the project has been delivered. In addition, as we live in a world of cloud, there will be alwats new services that are coming out; the responsibility of the customer success unit is to inform the product owner, so he will engage back with the customer if relevant and suggest the service. Why would the customer like to hear about it? The service may save him time. It may be simpler than what was offered to him in the past. It may reduce his cost. Who knows? That is the meaning of the customer success unit, upsell by providing the best assistance to the customer.

Does anyone need a cloud center of excellence? Absolutely not. The idea here is to provide a team who can support the turn-key, long-term projects and standardize how businesses work in the cloud. It can also solve shadow-it issues and duplication, reducing tension and politics.

Also, there is no "one-truth" here; each organization got its structure, limitations, and reasons to do and don'ts. The structure I wrote above is a structure you can play with once you decide you want to build a CCOE; it is crucial, though, that once you create such a team, have everyone aligned and have everyone understand the needs of the team. Without it, most likely, it will be challenging.

I hope you enjoyed this one; it is the most straightforward way to describe CoE and CCOE. If you have any questions or want to take this discussion another step, feel free to reach out to me. Also, again, the articles I'm writing are my own, and the opinions are my own, so feel free.

Thanks, everyone, and until the next time.

Ido