Delivering an entire project

[zerosum]

Having done three cloud migrations I would say it depends. The first cloud migration I carried out was where we simply did nothing other than to move the applications onto the cloud without any changes. The other two cloud migrations involved significant development work because of enhanced security requirements and a requirement to use cloud services such as RDS.

If the customer requires the apps to simply be moved to the cloud then it is a relative simple process of configuring the cloud and installing the applications. Then you can probably give an estimate. If the latter you need to carry out a full analysis first.

The idea is to have more reliability, and also to do self-serve (easier via a portal/CLI than raising tickets even with a fairly responsive partner). As such there will need to be adaptation to be able to leverage SLAs, have failover, georedundancy, etc. For example moving from IaaS to PaaS enables more failover out of the box, is easier to administer, autoscale, etc.

They have an in-house developer team so I’d look to sketch out a solution and general pricing parameters and hand it off to them.

I’ve advised on many such migrations, and been involved in implementing several end-to-end; the tricky part is to reduce the project management aspect as far as possible. ‘This solution is for entertainment purposes only...’

[zerosum]

From what you are asking it is unclear what issue you are trying to solve, I would suggest you go back to them with an offer of a 10 day paid requirements scoping exercise which will allow you to provide a full costed estimate (or if you are brave fixed-price) for the work. It's what any real consultancy would do when presented with this scenario.

Great suggestion...

[zerosum]

And that's before you factor in the fact that you've got to convince the client to risk their project on someone without a track record of doing this type of work.

They are very keen already, so no convincing needed; any persuasion I’d need to do would be for the purposes of wriggling out. It’s via someone I know that recommended me.

[GhostofTarbera]

Are we going to pretend being a PM requires skill now?

No don’t be silly


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[ladymuck]

It requires skills you clearly haven't got.

I like getting the PM to deal with tulipty people so I don't have to....

^ this.

Manager won't sign off the requirements when everyone else has and we've followed the pathetic process they insisted on? Not my problem, let the PM handle it.

[SueEllen]

Are we going to pretend being a PM requires skill now?

It requires skills you clearly haven't got.

I like getting the PM to deal with tulipty people so I don't have to....

[malvolio]

Are we going to pretend being a PM requires skill now?

Spoken like a true coder....

[1manshow]

Absolutely this everytime.

Are we going to pretend being a PM requires skill now?

[northernladuk]

The very fact you're asking means you don't have the right skills.

Absolutely this everytime.

[BlasterBates]

Having done three cloud migrations I would say it depends. The first cloud migration I carried out was where we simply did nothing other than to move the applications onto the cloud without any changes. The other two cloud migrations involved significant development work because of enhanced security requirements and a requirement to use cloud services such as RDS.

If the customer requires the apps to simply be moved to the cloud then it is a relative simple process of configuring the cloud and installing the applications. Then you can probably give an estimate. If the latter you need to carry out a full analysis first.

[oilboil]

Has anyone here made the transition from being a bum on a seat to being able to dictate the terms of a contract, hire people, give estimates, etc. I know it's a bit of an elephant to chew; can you suggest anything in terms of initial orientation? I have very limited data and just know what they're spending on on-prem infrastructure (they want to completely move to the cloud).

I haven't personally made the transition, as I've never done a "bum on seat" contract. All my contracts are scoped project deliveries where our company takes on the legal responsibility to deliver (plan, staff, deploy) the project - the client provides the statement of need, access to key stakeholders and needs to accept the delivered outcome as acceptable.

From what you are asking it is unclear what issue you are trying to solve, I would suggest you go back to them with an offer of a 10 day paid requirements scoping exercise which will allow you to provide a full costed estimate (or if you are brave fixed-price) for the work. It's what any real consultancy would do when presented with this scenario.

Anyone moving to the cloud, unless they are doing this instead of completely renewing their local estate will unlikely see a reduction in cost (as the kit is paid for and the support staff are being paid). What I'm saying here is don't offer a contract that is based on savings delivered in this example...

(However, prior to doing this for ourselves we were all involved in the higher stratosphere's of the Big 4 and so did this stuff with our eyes closed everyday)

[Lance]

Has anyone here made the transition from being a bum on a seat to being able to dictate the terms of a contract, hire people, give estimates, etc. I know it's a bit of an elephant to chew; can you suggest anything in terms of initial orientation? I have very limited data and just know what they're spending on on-prem infrastructure (they want to completely move to the cloud).

You need a PM mindset to some degree as you need to understand scope, budget, responsibilities, requirements, commercials.
In my experience very few techies could manage their way out of a paper bag let alone manage a proper project.

The very fact you're asking means you don't have the right skills.
And that's before you factor in the fact that you've got to convince the client to risk their project on someone without a track record of doing this type of work.

HTH



and yes I have done, and do do this sort of work. It takes time, patience and risk.

[northernladuk]

For starters check how the client differentiates engagments between workforce and services. It will be a different framework and might need a PSL. If you were talking public sector for example then you'd need to be on Gcloud no the specialists one so a no go from the off if you aren't on it.

Find out the art of the possible from the ground up first.

BTW I'm very negative on this as I think it's close to impossible. I'd be willing to bet every contractor on earth has eye'd this up and next to non of them pull it off. I'll put ever blocker up I can think of. If you can get past those then happy days.

[northernladuk]

There is a post asking a similar question going at the moment although it's got a bit derailed. Also it's been asked in the past so a quick search might uncover something useful. A couple of people have and have commented in the past and might on here.

It's very very few and from what I call none of them transitioned from one to another. They came in clean with a new requirement.

If it's a bum on seat role then the clients requirements are so different the two are unlikely to be interchangeable.

[zerosum]

Has anyone here made the transition from being a bum on a seat to being able to dictate the terms of a contract, hire people, give estimates, etc. I know it's a bit of an elephant to chew; can you suggest anything in terms of initial orientation? I have very limited data and just know what they're spending on on-prem infrastructure (they want to completely move to the cloud).