AFTAs 2019: Best IT Cloud Initiative—JP Morgan Chase

Cloud is one of the most competitive categories on offer in the American Financial Technology Awards. Last year, Bank of America won the award for its massive cloud migration program, while in 2017 it was Northern Trust that emerged on top with its focus on infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service and Containers. 

This year’s winner, JP Morgan Chase, maintains the high standards set by its predecessors in this category. The investment bank has taken a dynamic approach to accelerate migration onto the public cloud by holding “cloud parties” in a variety of cities, including Chicago, Mumbai and Glasgow.

Cloud parties is a concept the firm says has enabled more seamless cross-team collaboration by having the right people working together at the same time. Tasks that would have taken teams weeks or months to accomplish now only take a few days at a cloud party.

“Those events bring together hundreds of technologists across multiple areas under a common shared set of goals that are iteratively delivered over a few weeks,” says Fred Melo, head of cloud architecture and engineering at JP Morgan Wealth and Asset Management. “We drive very tight collaboration, accountability and measurable outcomes out of the cloud parties, and the results have been incredible. The excitement produced by each event is fundamentally driving cultural changes across the company.”

Participants at the events work across multiple areas under a common shared set of goals that are iteratively delivered over a few weeks. “While cloud parties have been extremely effective for us to accelerate how we develop and deliver software, the real impact happens when they become the new standard,” he says. “Incorporating the learnings from those events into how we work every day will be the key to scale the efficiencies and effectively boost our ability to deliver software better—in any platform. Effectively killing cloud parties should be our new goal, and something we’re really looking forward to doing.”