Cloud Preparation Plan

Purpose of the plan

The Cloud Preparation Plan (CPP) has been created to guide organisations through the process of preparing for cloud adoption. It covers the most important factors organisations should consider when assessing the case for cloud and developing a cloud strategy.

Before working through the plan, we recommend you share our Cloud Primer and Benefits of Cloud resources with business audiences in your organisation. They will help to close gaps in their understanding of cloud and highlight how cloud services can provide value and support business outcomes.

How it fits in the Cloud Framework

The cloud preparation plan guides organisations through the Plan phase of the Scottish Government cloud adoption process.

When you have worked through the cloud preparation plan, your organisation will be prepared to continue onto the Move phase of the process. The information and documents generated by the plan stage (your strategy and digital assessment) should be carried forward to support you as you develop your Cloud Adoption Plan (CAP).

What it covers

The cloud preparation plan helps you to:

• define your motivations for using cloud services
• discover, document and perform an initial rationalisation of your digital estate
• identify, understand and prepare to share and protect your data
• define how your motivations for cloud and desired business outcomes will change your operating model
• assess your readiness and consider whether you need to partner
• understand your procurement routes and define an approach to buying cloud services
• define the first draft of your cloud strategy.

Our approach

We understand that preparing for cloud adoption places an additional overhead on organisations are already under pressure to deliver existing services, whilst also trying to meet new demands from across the business.

The preparation process can be challenging because: 

• it is difficult to align the availability of key staff
• senior stakeholders may not be invested in the process
• existing operational obligations must still be met
• you do not have sufficient budget to fund new projects.

This combination of pressures and constraints can severely limit your capacity to focus your organisation on the preparation process.

To overcome these challenges, we have designed the plan to be light touch enough to complete, but detailed enough to be valuable. It contains templates for the documents you should create to. You can use these documents as they are, or modify them to meet your needs. Alternatively, you can develop your own instead. The most important factor is that you capture the information, both as a reference, and as a way of sharing the content with colleagues in your organisation.

By following the plan, you can take a strategic approach to cloud, whilst meeting your business goals and providing the cloud services your internal customers demand.

How to use the plan

You should work through the plan from start to finish.

Some sections of the plan result in outputs in the form of documents you can use to support your planning efforts. Others sections are solely informational and are designed to help you understand your options when adopting cloud services.

Begin with the next section, 'Developing your strategy'.