Earlier this week Computerworld had an interesting article that caught my attention:
Opinion: The 10 secrets of bad CIOs
 "In my decade as a CIO, I've seen a lot of turnover in the IT industry," said John Halamka - CIO of CareGroup Health System and Harvard Medical School. |
"Each time I hear about a CIO being fired, I ask around to learn the root cause."
"Here's my list of the top 10 ways to be a bad CIO:"
1. Start each meeting with a chip on your shoulder.
If a CIO presupposes that every request will be unreasonable and every interaction unpleasant, then every meeting will be unproductive.
I find that listening to naysayers, understanding common ground and developing a path forward works with even the most difficult customers.
2. Set priorities yourself.
Although the CIO should make some budget decisions — for instance, on infrastructure maintenance — customer-driven governance committees should help set the priorities for application development.
Good intentions won't prevent mismatches between customer expectations and IT resource allocation.
3. Protect your staff at the expense of the organization.
I work hard to prevent my lean and mean staff from becoming bony and angry.
But I can't just say no to customers, so I work with them to balance resources, scope and timing.
When compliance issues or strategic opportunities suddenly arise, I do my best to redirect resources to these new priorities, explaining that existing projects will slow down.
It's important to tolerate some ambiguity, accept change, support the institution and, if a resource problem evolves, ask for help.
View the rest of John's top 10 ways to be a bad CIO.
What would YOU list as a reason to fire the CIO?
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Fire the CIO
Really, in a well-run organization, the CEO should set the pace for how IT resources are used to help achieve corporate objectives. Too often stakeholders merely turn everything over to the IT staff who wave their smoke and mirrors and put a spell over the group with all it's geeky mumbojumbo.
It's really not that difficult. How can the technology serve the business? Helping employees be more productive and communicate more effectively? Yes, perhaps? Helping to reach new clients and serve customers better? Yes, perhaps. But unless the goals and means of getting there are not well defined, then you can expect nothing but more of the same insanity we have today: Gross over-spending and networks with more security and compliance holes than Swiss cheese.
Every C-level individual should rid themselves of the notion that the Internet is a means to an end. There are more entertainment-related features and opportunities for getting into trouble than people can find in bars and strip clubs. Unless stakeholders are willing to treat their business technology as a part of their business, every C-level person should be fired.