Your company needs you to be a transformational CIO

David M Williams
Monday, 16 May 2011 00:46

Opinion and Analysis

Chances are your company has begun work on budgets and strategy for the next financial year. Although IT is largely ethereal, although many execs do not understand it and although the world of technology is fast changing, you can be a world-class CIO that uses this process to articulate a clear strategy.

 

 

 

I'm not going to kid you that setting strategy is easy work. I certainly won't tell you that "one size fits all". However, the world of business does rely on fundamental principles which the modern IT leader can adopt and make their own.

Let's step back a bit. In my view, corporate IT faces two major problems, neither of which is actually technological. First, the company's strategic managers often don't fully grasp what IT does and is capable of. While it would be easy to simply succumb and run an IT department which merely "keeps e-mail running" a transformational CIO or IT Manager can rise to the challenge.

The second major problem leads on from the first. Due to the oft-misunderstood nature of IT there is virtually a dearth of mentors and tutors for the new IT leader. Up-and-coming superstar accountants, managers, salespeople alike all have a good chance of finding someone who will take them under their wing. By contrast, the skilled "IT guy" (or gal) typically needs to figure their own way out.

One of my goals for The Wired CIO is to help, to build a community of IT professionals embarking on a career journey together. So, today, let's get a framework for strategic thinking under our collective belts.

If you are a regular reader, you will recall last time when I said it was imperative to learn your company's business objectives. The path of the CIO is one of constant alignment to these objectives.

Here's a tip: want to know why your excited pitches to management elicit little response? It is because the higher-ups don't feel any connect between what you've said and where the company is going.

Your plan is - maybe rightly, maybe wrongly - not being perceived as moving the business in the direction it wants to head. Either your goal or your strategy or your presentation needs work.