Cloud as a Story - Vunvulea Radu

AI-Enabled Operating Model In previous articles, I looked at how AI may change IT roles and how this can affect team size throughout the SDLC. But after these discussions, I think the next question is even more important: how can an organisation actually move from today’s delivery model to an AI-enabled operating model? In real life, transformation isn’t just about changing job titles. You can rename a Business Analyst to Product Discovery Lead or a developer to AI Product Engineer, but if the process stays the same, the result will not be very different. The real change happens when the way of working changes. Many IT organisations are still built around handovers. Requirements are prepared by one group, delivery is handled by another, testing is done by another, release is managed by another team, and support is involved in the last stage of the flow. This model is common. It worked for many years, it helped enterprises to scale delivery, create structure and manage complex programme...

  Whenever AI and IT teams come up in conversation, I notice the discussion quickly moves to jobs and headcount. How many people will be replaced? Which roles will disappear first? Personally, I think that discussion misses the bigger point. From what I’ve seen, the biggest impact of AI isn’t just task automation. What really changes things is the way it cuts down handovers, reduces repetitive coordination, and removes a lot of the delays that teams have learned to live with. If we look at a typical software delivery organization, work is often split across many specialized roles. Business analysts gather requirements, product owners manage backlogs, developers write code, testers validate functionality, DevOps engineers prepare releases, infrastructure teams manage environments, and support teams handle incidents. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that model. But in practice, every handoff creates overhead. Meetings need to happen, tickets get opened, documents get wr...

 When we discuss AI in IT delivery, the main point isn’t that AI will take over everyone’s jobs. The bigger shift is that AI will cut down on the number of handovers between people. Right now, a feature might go from a Business Analyst to a Product Owner, then to a developer, tester, DevOps, and finally support. Each step adds meetings, tickets, explanations, and sometimes delays. With AI, many of these tasks won’t go away completely, but they’ll be combined into broader roles. Teams might get smaller in some areas, but more importantly, the way teams are structured will change. Before going into more details, you can find below a possible mapping of new roles, covering the full SDLC. Before With AI BA + PO + Process Analyst + Data Analyst Product Discovery Lead Scrum Master + PMO + Project Coordinator Delivery Manager Developer + QA Automation + Basic Tester AI Product Engineer Ma...