The introduction and use of cloud computing by an organization has the promise of significant benefits that include reduced costs, improved services, and a pay-per-use model. Organizations that successfully harness these benefits will potentially have a distinct competitive edge, due to their increased agility and flexibility to rapidly respond to an ever changing and complex business environment. However, as cloud technology is a relatively new phenomenon, there is still a lot to learn about the adoption and use of cloud, including issues such as security, data protection, interoperability, service maturity, and return on investment. These issues need to be considered,and if possible remediated,toenablean organization to effectivelymanage itscloud adoption journey. This paper describesan assessmentmodelthat was developed by the Innovation Value Institute (IVI) using a multi method, two-phasedapproach. The first phase involveda review of the currentacademic and practitioner literature in the area of cloud.Based on the key insights identified, together with inputs from a workgroup of industry experts anonline cloud adoption assessmentinstrumentwas developed. This assessmentinstrument aimedto provide organizations with a management structure to understand and assess their Enterprise IT capability maturity to evaluate, introduce,and manage cloud services. The second phase employed the principles of design science and open innovation to pilot, test, validate, and refine the cloud adoption assessment in collaboration with industry-based practitioners.As companies continue to grapple with the issues posed by cloud, the cloud adoption assessment willallow an organization to clearly determine their ability to manage:•Cloud security•Compliance•Dataprotection•Cloud service provider(s)•Costs•Impact on business and IT•The interoperability and integration between existing in-houseand cloud-basedservicesBy using the assessmentmodel, the level of maturity will identify areas of strengthand weakness within the organization and serve asthe basis for an improvement roadmap,to ensure the successful adoption andon-going management of cloud
