I like this topic. I don't like the pedestrian approach though. Put simply, what should a CIO (Career Is Over) do? By my thinking, the CIO should implement technologies that facilitate the organization achieving its goals in a secure, compliant, productive and cost-efficient manner. Too often, a CIO is simply doing a mash-up of technologies, "managing by magazine" and buying whatever gear is being touted by the IT media and analysts. The CIO should be working with the CEO to lay out the most efficient tools that accomplish the company's objectives and then invest the time and effort to ensure that the tools are performing as designed. Again, too often people deploy technology and then just assume that everything is hunky-dory. "IT management" is an active concept. It required objective data, regular review by stakeholders, planning, implementation and further review. The shampoo "lather, rinse, repeat" formula is quite applicable here too. Management is a process but managers are often too busy being bogged-down by minutia than to stop and think: how are actually doing? Is our technology investment being used to promote the bottom line or being squandered frivolously?
Most CIOs I know can't answer these questions with significant effort, resources and money being spent. I talk to IT people all the time. Most are too busy managing their gear than to stop and look at processes that can make their jobs easier. Most have too many projects underway than to do an evaluation. When I explain that it only takes 30 minutes of their time and can save weeks of effort it elicits silence. "I'm too busy." Ok. I think it's the realization that if they actually became more efficient at their jobs that management might think they're slacking. For some CIOs having teams of people running around, alarms bleeping, lights flashing and constantly busy teams of people is an indication that they're doing their job. Well, if fire fighting is standard operating procedure, perhaps it's time to take the Code Enforcement Officer approach? If you can employ processes to avoid all the running around, alarms AND guarantee that your systems are contributing to the bottom line, isn't this a better use of time and money? Yes, for those of you who love all the running around!
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CIOs Should Be the IT .. - I like that
I like Schratboys reply, just might add my comments. Yes, CIOs should do all that, now, even in a decent size company nobody has time for all of it. Maybe it's just me but there was a time when companies (CIOs) asked someone to solve business problems, nowadays it seems that, as Schratboy says, they are looking canned, well marketed, vendor special and depend products. Instead of creating a security, network, cloud, application, whatever solution the CIOs seem to asking someone to match Symatec, Cisco, Sun, SAP, Java, .NET, etc to their business even if it would be the most incompatible or the last best solution in some other way to the real problem(s) they have. In other words, some think changing the company business based on tools they use?
I don't know if it is egos, inexperience, free lunches, or some other aspect affecting the decisions but it really is causing very interesting and conflicting infrastructures to be built. I have seen / participated even big corporate IT merges which have gone both two ways - very smoothly and successfully when handled in business way, down to the tubes when letting the technology and marketing fad to take over.
Yes, CIO has to do business solutions or get them done based on corporate business goals, otherwise there is always a big and expensive cleanup waiting in future.
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