The case for migrating your Atlassian instance to the cloud is clear. With improved agility and scalability as well as cost and security benefits, there are numerous ways cloud investment makes good business sense. However, there are a number of hurdles and complexities that you need to address in order to ensure a seamless transition and meet your end-goals.
A common cloud migration hazard is failure to identify the various classes of stakeholders who are likely to be impacted by a transition to Atlassian Cloud and define the roles, responsibilities, and priorities of everyone involved. Not working with these stakeholders from the start has the potential to delay projects, increase costs and in a worst-case scenario, disrupt your business operations.
This blog leans on our extensive real-world experience to help you determine the key stakeholders that need to be involved in your cloud migration initiative and create a solid stakeholder management plan.
Creating a stakeholder management plan
Identify key stakeholders
In addition to IT roles working directly with the cloud, there are several other groups such as C-suite, finance, legal, procurement, and other internal units that might need to be brought in .
It’s worth keeping in mind that every business is different and the roles that need to be involved in your migration will vary based on factors such as, the size of your company, number of users, company’s objectives, legal obligations, organisational culture, business continuity needs, etc. These will ultimately affect the complexity of the migration exercise and help you determine what role each stakeholder will play in the project.
Prioritise stakeholders and assign logical roles
Not all stakeholders will have the same level of involvement with, or influence on your cloud migration project.
You need to prioritise your list of stakeholders and assign logical roles to them in a way that gives you the level of support and participation that you need while meeting the needs of the individuals. For those stakeholders where active involvement is critical, make sure they get involved in the early stages of the project.
Craft a communications plan
It is much easier to secure buy-in if stakeholders understand how their participation can impact a project and how the project outcome impacts them in return.
Make sure you clearly understand stakeholder motivations while designing a communications plan. Determine how the new change offers various stakeholders personal and professional benefits and communicate this, allowing them to voice their concerns and ideas.
It’s important to remain consistent in what you say and how frequently you communicate to get everyone on the same page. And while you explain the benefits, make it a point to lay out the potential risks and challenges as well, so that everyone gets the complete picture.
Common profiles to be involved in cloud migration process
Here are some hints to help you determine the main actors that will play a key role in your cloud migration process and the communication needs in context of each of these stakeholder roles, when migrating to Atlassian Cloud.
Project owner: The entire project is centered around the project owner, who is responsible for driving the migration process end-to-end .
This role will typically be an IT specialist who defines and communicates the business case for migration. They will be in charge of working with leadership, business units, security, compliance and technology teams and making sure all decisions are made on time. They will also oversee teams and time frames and share progress or issues to teams and management as needed.
Project approver: Has the final say in decision making and is accountable for the decision to fund the total cost of migration. Which means it’s key to work with these stakeholders during the planning phase of the project and communicate all high-level details, risks, financial and cash flow implications as clearly as possible.
Be sure not to share overly optimistic scenarios and be as transparent about the benefits being sought as well the time frame it will take to realise them.
Systems admins: This person or team was responsible for adapting the configurations of your systems in Server or Data Center. So, they will play a crucial role in reviewing various apps and workflows before you migrate.
Involve systems admins early on and hold regular meetings to take questions. Make sure you communicate how the features used by Server administrators, while not always exactly the same, will be fully supported in Atlassian Cloud.
For instance, once you’ve migrated to Cloud, authentication will be handled by Atlassian, while tool administrators will be just responsible for providing access to the Cloud products. Similarly, all upgrades for Cloud products will be taken care of by Atlassian, while your teams will be responsible for evaluating new changes, sharing feedback, and ensuring that users are not disrupted as new capabilities are rolled out.
Technical team: For medium and large organisations with more complex migrations, a dedicated tech team might be required to handle the various technical aspects of the migration.
They must have in-depth insights on a wide range of subject areas, such as database administration, user administration, security, contracts, licenses, and Atlassian products configuration, so they can handle the migration in a seamless manner and ensure minimal disruption to business operations.
It goes without saying that this team will be extremely involved in the migration process and should participate from the beginning to the end.
Security/legal team: Identity management, access control, and data security are of utmost importance in the cloud, so it’s crucial to get groups such as security onboard with the migration design and planning.
Plus, increasing data security regulations will likely trigger compliance requirements within many organisations and should therefore be factored into your migration decisions. So, rope in your compliance and legal experts in the early stages to make sure these aspects don’t derail your project later.
Atlassian is very open and transparent about how it approaches key governance policies, but it’s important to get the information shared by Atlassian reviewed by your experts to ensure it meets your organisation’s standards.
End-users: It’s wise to involve end-users in the testing and evaluation stages to make sure that the new Cloud configuration is satisfactory and teams can complete all important tasks, without encountering any problems.
This group of stakeholders will be directly impacted by the project, and can make the difference between an enthusiastic work group or an unsupportive one. So, it’s crucial for them to receive regular communications from the project team.
Be sure to explain why the business has chosen to migrate to Atlassian Cloud, making sure changes in processes, services and focal points are well understood.
Conclusion
The likelihood of smooth migration of your Atlassian instance to cloud can be greatly increased when you’re able to convince your company’s stakeholders to adopt and support your cloud strategy and roadmap. This makes a comprehensive stakeholder management plan, backed by consistent and pertinent communication among all stakeholders integral to the transition process.
For medium and large businesses with complex migration processes, bringing in an IT partner who has experience of working closely with key stakeholders to consistently deliver successful cloud migration projects is a must. Their insight and knowledge is invaluable, as it ensures accelerated delivery and prevents budgets from being overstretched.
Learn more about how we can help you create a tailored stakeholder management plan to make your Atlassian Cloud migration as smooth as possible.
