With the growing need to get cloud service capabilities online and operational across the Federal government, the chief information officer at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is making clear that agencies do not need to employ an “army” to get started on that work.
OPM CIO Guy Cavallo discussed how agency officials should avoid getting stuck in the rut of lengthy analysis, and instead move more quickly to putting cloud services in place during an address at the Oct. 19 Cloud Summit event hosted by NextGov/FCW.
“Don’t wait to build an army to do this,” Cavallo said of taking action to move to cloud services.
“At the TSA [Transportation Security Agency] we did it with three people, at SBA [Small Business Administration] I did it with five people. At OPM I’ve done it with about eight people,” he said.
“I have a staff of about 230 [at OPM]. I didn’t need to have all 230 be involved in the cloud. I just needed to hand-pick certain people that could move and move quickly,” said Cavallo.
Cavallo said that putting cloud on a quick timeline may pose an initial shock.
“Last year, I had a monthly all-in staff meeting [and] I announced that we’re going to do a two- year sprint to the cloud … I saw a lot of jaws dropped … but the reality is we’re well on our way. We finished the first year, we’ve already moved 38 applications to the cloud,” said Cavallo.
One of the issues that Cavallo has run into after many years of successful cloud adoption and integration at Federal agencies has been overblown fears of mishap including “if you go into the cloud overnight, somebody’s going to turn something on and our bills are going to go up a million dollars,” he said.
While concerns such like that persist, Cavallo said he makes it a point to always focus on explaining the positives of cloud platform adoption.
“While the technical team is moving to the cloud, I spend my time with the business offices explaining the benefits, why we’re doing it, how it’s going to impact them, how it helps us align to the National Cybersecurity directive, how it aligns with OMB directives, how it allows us to enhance the customer experience to meet those executive orders,” said Cavallo.
