Career / Opinions

Would it surprise you to learn that high-performing IT executives possess many of the same strengths as high-performing IT professionals who have no management responsibility? After all, doesn't it seem natural to assume that the skills needed to be a successful CIO differ from the skills that are required to be a good programmer, network administrator or DBA?
In fact, in light of results from recent studies, it appears two of the three cognitive skills required to be a top-notch IT executive are the same as those required to be a star IT employee: Metacognition (the ability to objectively evaluate your performance and figure out ways to improve it) and Working Memory (the ability to remember lots of different things while working on complex tasks).

When the economy cooled in 2008, companies throughout Australia were quick to rein in information technology spending. But with the first signs of recovery, they risk introducing a host of problems by ramping up IT budgets to compensate for having cut too much in the downturn. In order to win in a recovery, CIOs should consider the following questions.
1. Do we (those companies considering IT strategy) understand what was broken and have a plan to fix it?

There’s been a lot written about the recent Gartner Executive Programs CIO survey in which business intelligence (BI) moved from being the number one technology priority of CIOs around the world for the past five years to number five in 2010. Certainly it’s something I have been asked about a lot since it was published.
Shortly after the survey results were published, Mark McDonald, the head of research for Gartner’s Executive Programs service, wrote on his blog about some of the reasons behind the drop: “Business intelligence ‘the management capability’ needs to replace BI the technology.”

At the Gartner Symposium IT/xpo late last year, we hosted a session for CIOs entitled “Identifying CEO Expectations and Executing Against Them”. The ensuing discussion over lunch was lively and at times passionate. CIOs occupy a unique position at the executive table – one of particular complexity based on the volume of strategic relationships that must be nurtured and the sheer number of stakeholders that must be satisfied. To navigate this network of competing demands, the CIO seeks a strong supporter and ally in the CEO.
Paradoxically though, Gartner research reveals that a positive relationship of trust and credibility with the CEO is achieved by delivering against the immediate business unit leaders’ needs. The key message from our research into CEO and CIO relationships is that CIOs must earn the support of the business unit leaders, to gain the direct relationship with the CEO that they seek.

I’m a qualified accountant. I even sometimes read the Accountants Journal … there, I’ve said it!
As an accountant and a CIO I am intrigued by the debate within the IT community about how businesses should account for IT. Should it be a cost centre? A profit centre? Or a stand alone, semi-independent business unit? From what I can tell, the argument is that how an organisation chooses to do its accounting determines, or is an indicator of, how IT is seen strategically in the organisation. The logic seems to be that if you want to be an IT team that is strategic and adds value, then you need to be a profit centre as a minimum, or better yet a semi-autonomous business.

Each year in January, a national medical equipment company holds a conference for its sales representatives. A lot is packed into the three-day conference: results presentations, new product briefings, professional development workshops, a gala dinner where awards are given out and a rousing keynote address by a motivational speaker.
The conference is held at a different venue every year, usually at some swish location such as a golf or beach resort, and spouses are invited to attend. The conference is compulsory and - except for the company diehards - most staff don't want to be there.

I'm often asked what the CIO's role should be in keeping projects out of trouble. This is an especially challenging task in large organisations where the CIO must contend with multiple layers of management. CIOs want to talk about projects and programs and PMOs and dashboards and measurements, but the most productive time is often spent talking about the CIO's role in making an IT department successful.
Should the CIO's job be to influence desired outcomes, or should the CIO personally take control of major initiatives? Part of the answer to that question often lies in determining the type of CIO a given company employs. For the sake of argument - and this certainly is not a scientific assessment - let's say there are three types of CIOs: strategic, transformational, and operational. Each has unique characteristics, traits that give way to specific questions. Will the CIO's style mesh with a particular project? Does his or her experience fit the organisation's size and structure?

I recently attended a Gartner Executive Programs event at which one of our senior analysts presented insights into how the CEO, CFO and other members of the C-suite typically perceive the CIO. It was a forehead slapping moment for me. The research was conducted across five domains – business focus, personality, style, attitude and motivation. It appeared to me the attributes that had contributed to the successful career of the IT professional, and to landing the top job, were the same attributes that the CIO now needed in order to effectively interact at the executive level.
As an example, the research indicated that IT professionals are perceived as more sensitive to risk than their C-suite colleagues – an attribute no doubt built on a deep understanding of the business repercussions of system failure, as well as reputational damage to the IT organisation. This conversation started me thinking about the differences between the roles of the IT manager and CIO – and the areas on which a newly-promoted IT manager might focus to ensure their transition to CIO is successful.

The technology industry, indeed business in general, is enamoured with innovation. Any business-oriented magaszine you pick up talks about innovation and how to be more innovative. Innovate or die is our mantra and we are constantly on the look out for bright ideas. If you judge us by our actions, it seems we all believe that the person with the most ideas will win and all others are doomed.
The result is we are constantly looking for and implementing new initiatives. If something is wrong then start a project to fix it. If your competition seems to be better at something than you are then start a project to fix it. If there is a hot, new technology out there you better have an innovation fund available to be able to explore it and get ahead. Change is constant and if you can’t change faster than your competition then you will lose.

For Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, and other IT vendors, the only thing worse than knowing there is a meeting of global IT sourcing and vendor management executives is being a fly on the wall at a meeting of IT sourcing and vendor management executives.
At a recent meeting of Forrester's Sourcing and Vendor Management Leadership Board, the words "cost" and "cutting" were rarely separated during any discussion among the executives in the room - and their specific quotes regarding some vendors would make my father blush.

In the well-known management book Built to Last, co-authors Jim Collins and Jerry Porras pose the question: Why do some corporations last so long while others struggle to get by or quickly fade away?
The pair seek answers by studying 18 successful United States companies and comparing their performance with that of a competitor which is not doing so well. One of the book's insights is that each of the visionary companies established a set of core values from infancy and never wavered from them, even in hard times.

“Forget the arduous, intellectualised number crunching and data grinding. In real life, strategy is actually very straight forward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell.” Jack Welch
I love this quote. It captures so much of where I have ended up when it comes to understanding strategy. Not long after taking up my role as the CIO of The Warehouse I began to turn my mind to producing an IS strategy.

In these days of economic recession, with cyber crime on the rise, it's more important than ever for IT leaders to make the most of their security budget.

Over the past five years, I have had the opportunity to share my ideas — both good and bad — with the readers of this magazine. Alas, this will be my last opportunity to do so. After nine great years of living and working in Asia Pacific, I will be relocating back to the United States early next year.
As I look back through the columns that I have written, one predominant theme is evident. The role of a CIO is fraught with challenges — technical, political, organisational and global. There’s no amount of advice that can be provided that will equip you to deal with the magnitude and diversity of these challenges. But there are some personal attributes that I think will ensure you can lead your team through the fray.

As an American ex-pat writing for an IT-focused publication in Asia Pacific, I certainly did not think that I would have any reason to discuss the current US Presidential election. But then I read an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Note to the Next President: Avoid Computers”.
Over the past few months, much has been made of John McCain’s self-proclaimed “computer illiterate” status. Checking Google (or as the current President of the US calls it “The Google”) I found tens of thousands of blog references that compared the Blackberry-enabled and iPod-listening Barack Obama with the digitally-challenged and out-of-touch John McCain. The still unresolved question being asked: “Should the President of the United States use a computer?”

Effective CIO participation in corporate planning is critical for business and IT success. However, engaging in corporate planning can be a bumpy road for CIOs due to conflicting time lines, power politics, unforeseen shocks and shifting priorities in business units and the corporate office.
Fortunately, it's possible to follow the taillights of some CIOs who have successfully navigated the potholes and washed-out bridges. Their starting point in the planning process was figuring out their enterprise context.

As the economy tightens and corporate leaders seek ways to reduce costs and squeeze more out of organisations, CIOs are in a unique position to seize the opportunity to refocus their IT departments in a way that makes the business more competitive-both in the near term and for years to come. In doing so, savvy CIOs may be able to reduce the impact of budget cuts on IT and, at the same time, drive performance improvement and enhance the value of IT to the overall enterprise.

Most days the modern chief information officer faces climate change issues: changes to the business climate and environment driven by fluctuating economies, tighter regulation and compliance, ever more complex business structures, human resource issues - the list goes on. It is a vortex environment that requires a wide palette of skills. To keep pace with the growth, speed and complexity of operating in such a vortex , CIOs have morphed into technical specialists with strategic and visionary skills, and are turning their attention to the challenge of developing more robust risk-management strategies and policies.
In the "bad old days", technical specialists were not considered part of the strategic management team but merely part of the back office of the business. The focus was on creating technology solutions as requested by the company. Typically, this used to involve getting a specification brief, then retreating to the basement to spend the next eight to 20 months working to produce something that met those specifications.

1. It's all about the benjamins, baby.
Have you seen the money these cats make? Top information technology executives earn millions of dollars. And it's not just the cash CIOs pocket, it's the perks they get, too. Home security system to protect all their loot? Check. Personal use of the corporate jet? Check. Financial planner to funnel all that dough into off-shore, tax-free accounts? Check.

I’m often asked “What’s the right organisational chart for a high-performance IT function?” Of course there is no universally correct answer to that question — it depends on many factors, including but not limited to the industry drivers, the enterprise strategy, the maturity of the IT function and/or the IT delivery model. But I wonder if we should start thinking about the real relevance of organisational charts to superior performance.
Traditionally, the organisational chart was the primary definition of authority and accountability. It reflected organisation hierarchy and defined the boundaries and relationships between distinct functions and the ascending levels of authority within those functions. It typically defined individual job roles and responsibilities and prescribed how work would flow within and between boxes on the chart.