Risks of Moving to the Cloud: The Human Factor

As libraries join other business sectors in moving their operations to the cloud, advantages never before possible can now be achieved. However, there is a significant and decidedly non-technical risk to successfully adopting a cloud system. Ineffectively managing the human aspects of change remains the single greatest risk to achieving a successful migration. This paper describes the best practices of managing the human aspects of change that accompany the adoption of a cloud solution. The authors draw on both research in the field as well as practical experience managing the implementations of hundreds of libraries to a cloud solution.