The on-demand utility nature of Cloud Computing allows enterprises to access pre-integrated IT infrastructure and various as-a-service technical and business platforms with a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Enterprises leveraging such Cloud deployments bypass traditional IT acquisition processes to create market response framework that indeed enhances overall business agility.

Recognizing the strategic value of Cloud computing to enterprises, several have setup innovation labs to spearhead initiatives to devise an effective cloud adoption and enablement model and to help their enterprises achieve a smoother cloud transition.

As these on-cloud initiatives get underway, it becomes essential to understand few signature cloud computing characteristics and their implications that become evident while building Cloud-enabled products and services:

• Nature of business computing is dramatically shifting to be always-on and scale up as much as needed
• Emergence of mash-ups lead to finer grained services and solutions that can be discovered and assembled securely from anywhere through APIs
• Data being generated and dealt with is extremely large requiring new technical tools and skill sets, and more importantly raising the need to provide real-time operational view of this large data for enterprise to react and respond.
• Solutions can be entirely bootstrapped using Cloud-enabled resources to test new products and business solutions, placing emphasis on experimental innovation
• Enterprises are given incentive to concentrate on what they do best, and increasingly rely on IT-as-a-service offerings across globe
• Marshaling talent with capabilities to deliver these Cloud-enabled services using next-generation development tools and agile processes

Here I describe an operating model for an innovation lab in any global enterprise to pursue and build Cloud-enabled products.

Proposed Operating Model

Leveraging my experience in standing up and running an innovation, R&D and platform engineering lab, I propose an operating model called MEGHA for Cloud product innovation and development. An operating model drives and standardizes the innovation lab’s product management and engineering practices. The defining characteristics of the MEGHA Operating Model are derived from these key requirements:

• Cater to the new paradigm of building cloud-based products and services that is modular and supports adaptive integration to various as-a-service platforms.
• Allow latitude for experimentation to investigate new product and technical directions, to fail-fast and learn before committing full resources
• Leverage global reach of an enterprise’s operations and capabilities
• Formulate a framework that has culture, people and processes as dominant factors to success
• Create a product life-cycle that is rooted in lean principles and agile software development

The components of MEGHA model that drives lab’s focus, effort, and processes are:

1. Modular Design
2. Experimental Innovation
3. Global Network
4. Holistic Outlook
5. Adaptive Approach

Each of these characteristics build upon each other to create a multiplier effect making the overall process more effective to realize the lab’s mandate.

Modular Design

MEGHA model recognizes that true Cloud-native applications are an amalgamation of modular, highly optimized, and widely shareable services and components, as opposed to large monolithic applications. Connecting to various as-a-service platforms, either locally or remotely hosted, facilitate forming mashup of business services, and also obtain improvisations in development and service engineering.

This modular design has become a proven construct to assemble and implement applications rapidly. The value is further elevated when combined with other characteristics of the MEGHA model – modular design sets the stage for fine-grained course corrections to enable experimentation.

 

Experimental Innovation

By creating bandwidth and scope for product teams to explore new possibilities and running experiments, MEGHA model embeds innovation as a core competency.

Converging DevOps with lean processes allows experimentation and accelerates business enablement. By taking small steps toward innovation delivery, by focusing on real value to our enterprise clients, through adoption of lean processes such as Minimum Viable Product concept, and by establishing early guidance loop with business groups and clients, the dynamics of experimentation and IP value creation is set to become continuous, incremental, and responsive.

Leveraging DevOps Release Automation services, combined with agile development, can help in such experimentation because it offers the development teams:

• Unlimited number of testing and staging servers
• Ability to run multiple development activities in parallel
• Ease of branching and versioning and merging

Further, a vital point to consider is that this process is a natural fit for Cloud-based applications as Cloud eliminates cumbersome distribution requirements.

Global Network

By establishing a working arrangement with enterprise’s other global innovation centers or through crowdsourcing, MEGHA operating model espouses to gain access to the best talent and expertise from across the globe in various subject domains. This ability to leverage eclectic resources across global network of teams is crucial to create long-term, sustainable advantage.

Consciously reflecting upon and drawing on knowledge possessed by these global experts, as the tasks demand, we could create a development environment and learning model where less-experienced team members can observe and learn from the vastly experienced technical and industry SMEs.

Injecting such key expertise in the innovation development process in turn fuels experimental innovation as it allows the team to utilize what already exist and leapfrog to accelerate actual product-centric IP development.

Holistic Outlook

Setting up and running a global delivery model for innovation work mandates us to recognize that it is much more than process and technology. MEGHA model’s approach assumes a holistic outlook that emphasizes focus on all fragments of innovation development: Common Vision, Culture, Competence, and Communication.

The model acknowledges two critical imperatives at play that are seemingly opposing but in reality synergetic: the need to build self-organizing and independent team and the need to integrate with other global innovation teams to pursue and build value collaboratively. This principle of highly cohesive but loosely-coupled operating structure influences, and is evident in, all aspects of MEGHA’s development model.

Common Vision

Embracing a systemic framework to building a portfolio of innovations that is driven by common vision, rather than pursuing isolated ideas, clarifies purpose, aligns priorities and drives action. Clear understanding of how each product idea fits into overall product portfolio, and how efforts of one team affects other development teams, is crucial for continued, long-term success. Nothing would motivate a high-performance team more than the ability to have their work make positive impact to the whole enterprise in general.

Culture

While capturing access to global resources, framing clear goals along with well-designed recognition and incentive structures are necessary to create real and wide access to shared information. After the access is established, recognition of organizational cultural differences, developing respect for any differences, connecting different viewpoints, are all different aspects that are embedded into the operating model.

Competence

There is no quality more critical to a product development and innovation center than competence. It is the deciding and key source for any engineering team’s success. With the rapid changing pace of technology, the key is to build and develop a framework that supports organizational learning. MEGHA model’s attributes regarding experimentation and leveraging global capabilities makes this learning and competency building a cumulative process.

Communication

Distributed teams working on opposite time zones introduce a significant challenge on the collaboration and exploration with distant teams. To some extent this is addressed through usage of instant communication and latest conferencing technologies that enable seamless, effortless fosters dialogue and sharing of information. However, while these tools help to keep team members informed, true synergy of actions is achieved when the distant teams are adopting same product management and engineering processes and best practices that lead to common behavior.

Adaptive Approach

Many enterprises have well-defined staging process establishing good clarity on product ideation and qualification activities. While this provides a good anchor for deliberation, as in any new product venture, there is always a residual uncertainty that can influence the outcome. It is fundamental for the product management and development approach to adapt to end-clients’ business needs.

MEGHA model’s adaptive approach forms the top overarching layer that brings together the model’s different attributes:

• The product engineering adopts a lean and agile methodology that strives throughput maximization, and its release sprints adapt to development team’s velocity
• This incremental development along with experimentation using front-loaded prototyping or building Proof-of-Concept (PoC) offers quicker confirmation on technical feasibility
• Aiming for building an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) version allows early business validation
• Process, tools and technology standardization enables workload migration across standing teams
• Continuous improvement is possible because the architecture is modular composing fine-grained services