It's vital that a CIO have a way of measuring progress. Two keys in my mind beyond what's in Chris' articles:
be clear how what you are measuring ties to the business' goals and make sure the rest of the executive team including the Board understand your metrics. Sure you'll have internal goals that are too technical for the rest of the executive team to understand but be certain they tie to something they do understand.
Additionally, there should be two or three metrics that your boss knows and can articulate. In each of my CIO assignments, I've been successful in creating the Key 3 that the Board and the CEO "get" and track. For a recent client, one of those key's was an innovation ratio we created. It was an easily calculated measure that at a summary level gave an indication of course and speed. In other words, in one summary measure we could tell if we were going faster or slower. Easier said than done but worth the effort.
Anyways, Chris' series is so good I've captured it for future reference on my Del.icio.us tag cloud. Good stuff!
5 Characteristics of a CIO Dashboard - Part 1 in a Series — CIO Dashboard: ""
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2 comments:
Patrick,
Thanks so much for the mention and the kind words. It's great for a consultant to get validation from experienced practitioners.
To your first point on making sure the measurements tie to business goals, one way to do this is through a business architecture design process that takes business objectives, determines what business capabilities are needed and then attaches IT capabilities and metrics to that. Here is a post with more details A CIO Can't Do More With Less
Thanks again and look forward to chatting more in the future.
Chris, I like that approach. Sadly, the business often can't tell what IT costs and capabilities are the result of/requirement for which business objective. Not the business leaders fault, it's the CIO's.
Thanks for the link and the writing. Great stuff.
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