How to Herd Clouds and Influence People From chaos to control: one organization's journey to transform enterprise cloud governance. A Tale of Transforming Cloud Strategy into Governance That Actually Works Day 1: Gary can’t even log in on his first day as cloud architect at Goliath Federal Bank. 500 days later: He’s transformed the organization’s entire approach to cloud governance—turning chaos into control and resistance into collaboration. What happened in between? The messy, human reality of enterprise cloud governance—where the biggest challenges aren’t technical, they’re organizational. Shadow IT teams, division politics, security incidents, and audit pressures all collide as Gary builds something that’s never existed before: cloud governance that enables innovation instead of killing it. This isn’t another best practices manual. It’s the untold story of why cloud management is so hard at scale—and how one team learned to herd clouds and influence people. Perfect for: IT leaders, cloud architects, and anyone trying to transform technology and teams. Praise for the book: “I highly recommend it for anyone wanting change in their organization.” — Michael Hedgpeth, Co-Founder, People Work “One of the most unique and entertaining technical books I’ve ever read.” — Dave Shrestha, Enterprise Cloud Architect “Offers leaders the strategic insights necessary to transform cloud governance from a compliance burden into a competitive advantage.” — Meredith Stein, Co-Author, Unlocking the Power of the Cloud “The details are spot-on and capture the real challenges of enterprise cloud transformation.” — Otto Aulicino, Sr. Director, IT Security "Most tech books tell you what to do. This one shows you how to get people to actually do it. Gary's journey to becoming an organizational leader is the roadmap every cloud architect needs. This book will make you care about the characters because you're probably living through it yourself. Just like The Phoenix Project became essential reading for anyone trying to understand and implement DevOps, How to Herd Clouds is essential reading for anyone trying to bring order to cloud chaos through effective Cloud Governance." — Matty Stratton, DevRel Leader, Host of Arrested DevOps "This book tackles the organizational challenges that are often missing from technical discussions about cloud governance. The narrative is delivered in an accessible way and resonates with the real enterprise dynamics I've seen. The journey the characters go through effectively illustrates how technology solutions fail without proper attention to people, process, and organizational change management. The path to technical solutions is always through people." — Ken Robbins, President, Go2 Software, Former Executive Director of Engineering at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) "I recently read through this book on Cloud Governance. It brought up a lot of memories for when I was at NCR. The author does a fantastic job of helping you get in the mindset of a change agent at a large organization, and some of the well-meaning pitfalls that change agent will fall into. It all comes down to aligning with people and finding common ground. At the end of the day, that other department isn't stupid, they just have their own goals, and the minute you find the commonality, you're off to the races! I really appreciated how this book illustrates this principle, over time, in a simple and easy to follow narrative. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting change in their organization." — Michael Hedgpeth, Co-Founder at People Work, former Executive Director for Cloud Engineering at NCR, Observability Platform Leader for Splunk Enterprise Cloud "In our rapidly evolving digital landscape, cloud governance has emerged as a critical strategic differentiator. Cloud governance creates the right incentives, guardrails, and organizational culture that guides teams toward secure, compliant, and cost-effective cloud practices. Bob Tordella's 'How to Herd Clouds and Influence People' captures this paradigm shift, offering leaders the strategic insights necessary to transform cloud governance from a compliance burden into a competitive advantage." — Meredith Stein, co-author, Unlocking the Power of the Cloud "One of the most unique and entertaining technical books I've ever read. The book does a brilliant job capturing an actual large enterprise cloud journey from manual processes and spreadsheets to self-service automated guardrails. I personally went through this very journey with 90% accuracy of what the author captured - from establishing cloud centers of excellence and champions programs, to navigating the critical gap between awareness and action, to learning that 'you need buy-in, not just a mandate.' The organizational insights are spot-on: how solutions are presented is critical for successful adoption, and divisions need to feel ownership, not just compliance. This captures the real-world