Thursday 15 May 2008

How the CIO should manage the CEO....

...Or "If you have a yes-man working for you, one of you is redundant!" — Barry Rand of Xerox

Well presented talk about how we as CIOs should work with and manage our Senior Managers especially the CEO or Vice Chancellor

It sounds simple, but the use of time is the starting point for improving the CIO's position as a business leader. Some Gartner research has shown that most CIOs' engagement with senior business colleagues is limited — 71% spend less that one 1 day per month, or an average of less than 20 minutes per day.
Those CIOs who routinely spend the most time learning and engaging are more involved in setting business strategy, having their advice sought more by the CEO, and spending almost a quarter of their IT budget on transformational projects rather than just keeping things going.

We need to engage senior management/CEO not on IT issues, not on business operations issues, but on business success – it’s all about focus.

There was an interesting slide about the right and wrong questions a CEO should ask a CIO – wrong ones include why is IT so expensive?, How can we cut IT costs? Right ones would include How is IT helping us win?, How we can use IT to get a strategic advantage?
The CIO's challenge is changing from "doing things right" to "doing the right things."

No comments: