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Department in particular had to improve, he had called in professional
support and engaged a well‐known Cloud consultant by the name of Sam
Smart. Also, Max wanted the meeting to be as efficient as possible,
prompting him to appoint management coach Carl Consensus as the
workshop moderator.
Even though the participants didn't always agree during daily business,
there had even been some genuine disputes, the closed doors approach of
this event and the attractive surroundings gradually bonded them into a
homogeneous, target‐oriented team. Carl Consensus had made a substantial
contribution thanks to his methodical approach. He had repeatedly called on
the participants to be creative, to think outside of the box, and had paid
close attention to avoiding letting ideas that had been put forward be shot
down with negative view points, managing the discussion in a target‐
oriented, objective way that avoided personal attacks.
The strategy weekend was a great success: It was a pleasant surprise for
Max that the group had also come up with some interesting new business
options. In any case, he had succeeded in making it clear to his management
team that things had to change and that this would mean significant
changes for the existing organisation and ingrained processes. Each of the
participants was aware that this was probably the biggest challenge.
Max had also succeeded in explaining the importance of new IT procedures,
in particular, Cloud based solutions. Everyone was now fully aware that this
would present distinct opportunities and make it possible to implement
ideas much faster. The IT manager at Clever Inc.was also satisfied, because
the group had managed to develop a strategy in the course of the weekend,
and everyone was aware that IT security was still crucial and had to be taken
into account. No one wanted to see their own company ridiculed in the local
newspapers, due to a hacker manipulating the production machines,
rendering them functionless.
The participants had decided to develop a Cloud strategy and decided which
applications should be procured in the Cloud, and which they would
continue to manage internally. They also had to establish a clear‐cut
catalogue of quality and security criteria for all applications, in order to be
able to approve, or decline, new applications quickly in the future, based on
the catalogue. Finally, they had even decided to migrate an application,
previously only used by internal staff on smart phones and tablets, to the
Cloud and make it available to customers and distributors. This idea was met
with the greatest enthusiasm from all the participants, as they had all
