Overview

“Doing the right things is easy if you know what your core values are”

Core values are the compass for an organisation. They direct individuals and the team as they shape a shared group identity. For this purpose, the shared core values of a team need to be made explicit in order to assess whether they are in line with the pursued mission and vision of the organisation, a CCoE included.​

Transition to cloud not only affects those who have been directly responsible for maintaining infrastructure. It impacts many stakeholders beyond that as well: finance will have to deal with infrastructure costs as OPEX rather than CAPEX, procurement may have to be able to determine whether a SaaS application meets overarching architectural principles. In other words: a large variety of stakeholders coming from different disciplines will have to be able to translate the company vision about cloud transition into a fit for purpose set of core values. ​

Therefore, for whoever is involved in the transition to cloud and/or the implementation of cloud governance, the current set of common core values needs to be made explicit.​

Recurring assessments of whether core values are still  aligned with the pursued mission and vision of the organisation can then become part and parcel of the workload of that team. Just put it on the backlog! An identified gap can be resolved using a variety of interventions, workshops and tools. The CCoE will provide those.​

This way awareness regarding the difference between perceived and real use and notion of core values is created. Secondly, the CCoE will be equipped with a range of tools to address this gap. Independent from where it originates, in a team, at personal level, higher management or the department responsible for the acquisition of new staff, it will become a standardised item to be reported upon, allowing red flags to be raised in time.

Activities checklist

Initial:

• Capturing and validating vision and mission​
• Drafting CCoE Manifest​
• Identifying current values in existing statements, plans and other corporate communication carriers  ​
• (Involving communications to) design target group appropriate platforms to communicate vision and mission ​
• Making inventory of current activities regarding core values and vision​
• Assessing current core values, formulating desired core values and identifying the gap​
• Making a stakeholder risk assessment and defining mitigating actions

Recurring:

• Aligning vison and current core values​
• Washing new and temp team members with vision & mission​
• Creating ownership and tool for keeping tap on core values​
• Measuring gap​
• Defining actions

RASCI