The industry veteran offered three tips for agencies mapping out their cloud strategies: know what you have, know your options and don't be afraid to cut loose legacy systems that won't migrate.

More: Federal CIO: Agencies need to finish IT projects

Know what you've got

The first step, Scott said, is getting an inventory of the existing systems and the platforms and infrastructure they run on.

See More: Federal approaches to public cloud services

"Have a roadmap for those things to understand on what timeframe and under what conditions you're going to move things," he said, noting at some point agencies will have to make decisions about moving to a whole new platform.

If a new platform is needed…

Identify common platforms

Today, agencies often identify a need for IT products and services then go through a lengthy procurement process to acquire them. With cloud services, in particular, Scott said agencies should first look at what their colleagues are doing and take advantage of any shared services potential.

"There's patterns across the federal government, things that every agency does that there ought to be a cloud underpinning for," he said. "Identifying those common services and creating an environment where everybody can take advantage of those at scale is key to getting there."

Related: Agencies interested in shared services, wary of risks

Kill the weak

Finally, Scott warned of getting bogged down by legacy apps that are too complicated or esoteric to migrate into a cloud environment.

"Be very deliberate about killing off the stuff that's not going to survive the move to the cloud," he said. "We're great at launching new things but getting rid of the old stuff is part and parcel of that journey."

These steps can mean difficult cultural and organizational changes but the rewards in cost savings and agility more than make up for it, Scott added.

"The benefits are phenomenal once you get there," he said.

Aaron Boyd is an awarding-winning journalist currently serving as editor of Federal Times — a Washington, D.C. institution covering federal workforce and contracting for more than 50 years — and Fifth Domain — a news and information hub focused on cybersecurity and cyberwar from a civilian, military and international perspective.

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