This post is part of a three-part series on middle managers and Cloud Native transformation. Here are parts one and two.

In the second part of this series we looked at how mid-level managers may not wholly function as a force for good within your organisation, and the ways that this ‘frozen middle’ may actually be impeding progress. The power they hold over an initiative’s success often goes unrecognised, but it does exist and can be used to.

This post is part of a three-part series on middle managers and Cloud Native transformation. Here are parts two and three.

Being a middle manager is a tough gig.

Sometimes, you just know that things won’t end well.

When a company takes on a Cloud Native project, let alone a full transformation, it’s already got a lot of challenges ahead of it.

For anyone that has been engaged in the big trend towards the containerisation of software applications, and the move to elastic, on-demand infrastructure, you'll know how important getting skilled up in the technology is. It's not just Docker and Kubernetes that needs mastering; there's a whole 'landscape' of tech that needs to be mastered in order to successfully run production-grade containerised workloads.

In his 1979 book, The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander tells a wonderful story of two barns. The first was extremely long, over 240 feet, and instead of having doors at the end (where you usually find them) they were in the middle on both of the long sides. The second barn was nestled into the side of a hill, had three stories instead of two, and five doors. The barns were unique, completely different, and yet instantly.