The CIO has a New Role for a New Era
By William M. Ulrich
(Originally appeared in Computerworld Oct. 16, 2000)
The face of information technology is changing. Business units, outsourcing vendors,
application service providers (ASPs) and supply chain, electronic-market and other consortia have taken over many tasks that have traditionally fallen within IT. Dispersing the management of these functions has resulted in greater flexibility in deploying business-driven solutions, but it has
also reduced IT's ability to standardize, streamline and coordinate IT-related functions.
This distribution of IT roles and responsibilities has also diminished the CIO's ability to impose policies and dictate results. Yet the CIO must still find ways to enable key business initiatives through the effective and efficient use of technology.
Outsourcing and ASP vendors, distributed e-business initiatives and third-party consortia are here to stay, essentially ending the reigns of monolithic IT organizations at which CIOs had complete control over all
information-management functions. But these new dynamics have given rise to fragmented initiatives that are poorly coordinated. Left unchecked, that
fragmentation will escalate. To alleviate this situation, top-down command-and-control models must be replaced with organizing philosophies
that facilitate communication, collaboration and adaptability.
The CIO is best suited to lead the enterprise into this new era. More than other
top-level executives, he understands IT and how it enables business strategy. I have spoken with CIOs who understand the challenge of bridging the gap
between business requirements and the ability to deliver solutions to fulfill those
requirements in a timely manner. The CIO must be able to influence and inspire internal and external business units to work toward a common goal in a
coordinated fashion. This requires the CIO to be a leader in developing a clear vision for IT and motivate executives and all employees to pursue this vision.
As part of IT's transformation into a collaborative organization, the CIO should strive to reshape IT so that distributed functions can be coordinated under a common information-management infrastructure. This requires bringing IT, business units and external business partners together to collaborate, share ideas and self-organize to accommodate ongoing change. The self-organizing aspect allows technical and business units to form working teams without reorganizing from the top down each time. The CIO, in tackling such an initiative, would demonstrate leadership by sacrificing command authority to create a more effective IT organization. In other words, decisions will be delegated to units performing the tasks associated with those decisions.
Here are three steps the CIO should take in transforming the IT organization:
1. Determine how information is processed and managed. The CIO and a cross section of business and IT representatives should convene focus groups with each business and technology unit that performs IT-related functions. This should include any third parties contracted to perform IT tasks. The findings establish a basis for the next steps, which include selling management on the need to transform the IT organization.
2. Work with a comprehensive cross section of business and IT representatives to develop a vision for the new IT organization. This new organization builds upon existing strengths while eliminating the bureaucracy that inhibits or discourages communication and collaboration. As part of the transition to this new organization, the CIO works with all relevant parties to define the purpose and principles that bind participants under a common organizational framework.
3. Finally, create an IT "constitution" that defines each group's purpose, role and relationship with other groups. In the new organization, the CIO has no direct reports but convenes a working council of representatives from each major functional area. As council chairman, the CIO becomes a strategist, motivator, collaborator and leader.
The CIO is in a unique position to deliver business strategies through IT. Change is always difficult, but a strong CIO will have the leadership qualities needed to steer the enterprise through these dynamic times. It's time the CIO leads the
effort to reinvent IT - and the CIO's role - along the way.