Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization
- Infrastructure & Operations is changing rapidly. It’s a constant challenge to find the right skills to support the next new technology while at the same time maintaining the skills in house that allow you to support your existing platforms.
- A lack of clarity around required skills makes finding the right skills difficult, and it’s not clear whether you should train, hire, contract, or outsource to address gaps.
- You need to keep up with changes and new strategy while continuing to support your existing environment.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Take a strategic approach to acquiring skills – looking only as far as the needs of the next project will lead to a constant skills shortage with no plan for it to be addressed.
- Begin by identifying your future state. Identify needed skills in the organization to support planned projects and initiatives, and to mitigate skills-related risks.
Impact and Result
- Leverage your infrastructure roadmap and cloud strategy to identify needed skills in your future state environment.
- Decide how you’ll acquire needed skills based on the characteristics of need for each skill.
- Communicate the change and create a plan of action for the skills transformation.
Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization Research & Tools
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should map technical skills for a changing Infrastructure & Operations organization, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
- Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization – Phases 1-3
1. Identify skills needs for the future state environment
Identify what skills are needed based on where the organization is going.
- Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization – Phase 1: Identify Skills Needs for Your Future State Environment
- Future State Playbook
- IT/Cloud Solutions Architect
- IT/Cloud Engineer
- IT/Cloud Administrator
- IT/Cloud Demand Billing & Accounting Analyst
2. Acquire needed skills
Ground skills acquisition decisions in the characteristics of need.
- Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization – Phase 2: Acquire Needed Skills
- Technical Skills Map
3. Maximize the value of the skills map
Get stakeholder buy-in; leverage the skills map in other processes.
- Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization – Phase 3: Maximize the Value of Your Skills Map
- Technical Skills Map Communication Deck Template
Workshop: Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
1 Review Initiatives and Skills-Related Risks
The Purpose
Identify process and skills changes required by the future state of your environment.
Key Benefits Achieved
Set foundation for alignment between strategy-defined technology initiatives and needed skills.
Activities
1.1 Review the list of initiatives and projects with the group.
1.2 Identify how key support, operational, and deployment processes will change through planned initiatives.
1.3 Identify skills-related risks and pain points.
Outputs
Future State Playbook
2 Identify Needed Skills and Roles
The Purpose
Identify process and skills changes required by the future state of your environment.
Key Benefits Achieved
Set foundation for alignment between strategy-defined technology initiatives and needed skills.
Activities
2.1 Identify skills required to support the new environment.
2.2 Map required skills to roles.
Outputs
IT/Cloud Architect Role Description
IT/Cloud Engineer Role Description
IT/Cloud Administrator Role Description
3 Create a Plan to Acquire Needed Skills
The Purpose
Create a skills acquisition strategy based on the characteristics of need.
Key Benefits Achieved
Optimal skills acquisition strategy defined.
Activities
3.1 Modify impact scoring scale for key skills decision factors.
3.2 Apply impact scoring scales to needed skills
3.3 Decide whether to train, hire, contract, or outsource to acquire needed skills.
Outputs
Technical Skills Map
4 Develop a Communication Plan
The Purpose
Create an effective communication plan for different stakeholders across the organization.
Identify opportunities to leverage the skills map elsewhere.
Key Benefits Achieved
Create a concise, clear, consistent, and relevant change message for stakeholders across the organization.
Activities
4.1 Review skills decisions and decide how you will acquire skills in each role.
4.2 Update roles descriptions.
4.3 Create a change message.
4.4 Identify opportunities to leverage the skills map in other processes.
Outputs
Technical Skills Map Communication Deck