Stop thinking like a CIO

Maybe I should have better said "Think like a consultant...or Think like your boss". In any case, too often CIO's, myself included, don't do enough to get outside our roles and consider our particular business and business in general from another perspective. It matters not whether you're in a profit-making endeavor or a not-for-profit, it's important to spend time thinking about your enterprise differently if you're going to provide the sort of game-changing leadership needed.

I love to read. Everything from Sports Illustrated to aviation magazines to Runners World to fiction. I try to always have a big stack of books waiting for me. My rule is to alternate fiction with non-fiction; switching from "play" to "work" to stay fresh.

The last quarter of the year I read a series of books by my friend and colleague, Faisal Hoque, founder of BTM Corporation. Faisal's been advocating for a different, structured approach to managing business technology for years. One of the key takeaways was the need to move from striving to align the IT and business strategies (as if they were somehow separate) to fully integrated business technology management. BTM have built the frameworks and applications to help organizations dramatically improve the return on their invested business technology capital. Great stuff and for starters I'd highly recommend his book "Winning the Three-legged Race".

I just recently finished an excellent book which may not be on the typical CIO or CTO reading list but should be. Entitled "The Breakthrough Imperative" by Gottfredson & Schaubert, it's an excellent look at how the consultants at Bain & Company analyze a business to determine opportunities for improving performance. As the business technology leader for your organization, some part of each week should be consumed in doing the same thing. Think like a consultant. As technology leaders, we have an advantage over nearly anyone else in the organization (or the consultants on the outside for that matter)- we are trained to think holistically, in systems and their interconnection. Analyze your business, fold that into your technology investment discussions with your peers in the rest of the business and see what a difference there is in the conversation.

Read any good books lately??

By the way, our website is Clear IT Leadership. I'll be migrating this blog to our new site soon.

Run IT as a business -- why that's a train wreck waiting to happen | Adventures in IT - InfoWorld

Run IT as a business -- why that's a train wreck waiting to happen | Adventures in IT - InfoWorld: ""

I'll keep it simple by saying first, Amen to the general principle which is that IT doesn't have internal customers. There are NO "internal" customers. All the customers are "out there". I define customers as those from whom we obtain revenue. Everyone else, every function inside the company, is part of meeting the customers' needs. It's why the company exists. But then I've said that before.

Secondly, where I will disagree slightly is that this isn't a train wreck waiting to happen, the crash has already occurred; we're just watching the clean-up now. We see it all the time. The CEO says "IT's become an order-taking organization and we need them to be more strategic." IT matches up with the article's profile including calling the business, "customers". CIO's should forbid the use of the word throughout IT in reference to anyone who doesn't give the company money, i.e. isn't the source of revenue.

Knowing who the company's customers are and working to provide them with the services and products they require is the reason IT and the rest of the business exists. We're all in this together.