Assessment Procedure

With a relatively complete cloud maturity model in place, it takes about one week to complete an assessment. The procedure for cloud maturity assessment is as follows:

1. Define the scope of assessment.

   This is the basis of the entire assessment process. In this phase, you need to determine the specific scope to be assessed based on the current situation and business requirements of your organization. Cloud transformation involves multiple assessment dimensions and many assessment questions. You may not be able to cover all of them in one assessment. You can focus on the aspects most relevant to the current development stage and business objectives of the organization and select some key dimensions for assessment. By communicating with relevant business departments and technical teams, you need to identify the areas that need to be improved the most and ensure that the assessment focuses on the aspects most valuable to your organization. The goal of this step is to develop a clear and executable assessment scope, laying a solid foundation for subsequent assessment work.

2. Identify and coordinate assessors.

   This step is critical to the accuracy and effectiveness of the assessment. You need to determine the most suitable personnel within your organization to answer the selected assessment questions. These personnel should have solid knowledge of the areas they are responsible for and be able to provide objective and detailed answers. The following table describes the recommended assessors from the 10 dimensions of cloud maturity assessment:

   Table 1 Recommended assessors

   Dimension	Recommended Assessor
   Strategies and business	CEO or CIO
   Organization and processes	CIO or HR director
   Well-Architected Framework	CIO or enterprise application architecture leader
   Cloud infrastructure	CIO or IT director
   Application modernization	Application architect
   Digital intelligence	Business director or data architect
   Cloud security	CISO
   Cloud O&M	O&M director
   FinOps	Cloud cost management leader
   Cloud transformation benefits	Business director or IT director

   You need to coordinate the time of assessors and try to concentrate assessment activities within a period of time to improve efficiency. In addition, to ensure that assessors can fully understand the purpose and requirements of the assessment, you can provide instructions and training before the assessment to explain the purpose, process, and requirements of the assessment in detail.

3. Perform the assessment.

   This step is the core of the entire process. Assessors need to answer questions carefully and objectively based on the assessment scope and questions determined earlier. In answering each question, the actual situation of the organization should be fully considered, and specific data and examples should be provided for support. If assessors have any questions about some assessment questions, they should contact the assessment expert in a timely manner and attend Q&A meetings to ensure that the questions are accurately understood. When performing the assessment, avoid subjective assumptions. Assessment must be based on facts. In addition, the objectivity and confidentiality of the assessment need to be emphasized, and assessors are encouraged to report the truth and assured that the reported content will not cause any negative impacts. The quality of this step directly affects the reliability of the assessment results and the effectiveness of subsequent improvement measures. Therefore, assessors need to pay enough attention.

4. Produce an assessment report.

   The assessment expert needs to summarize and analyze all the answers provided by the assessors to identify the organization's strengths and gaps in cloud maturity. For the identified capability gaps, the assessment expert should conduct an in-depth analysis of their causes and impacts and propose targeted improvement suggestions. These suggestions should be specific and actionable, including the priority of improvement measures, implementation methods, and expected results. The assessment report should be logically clear and well-organized, covering the assessment results comprehensively and providing strong support for the organization to develop the subsequent action plan. Through the assessment report, the organization's management and departments can clearly understand their current capabilities and the areas that need improvement, thereby formulating and adjusting cloud strategies, cloud objectives, and implementation plans in a targeted manner. A quality assessment report is an important decision-making basis for an organization's cloud transformation.