From the category archives:

Role definition

The CIO and the fine art of vendor negotiation

December 10, 2009

“Don’t write about that,” I’ve been told by several colleagues, when I’ve mentioned that I was working on a post about how best, as the senior technology executive, to negotiate with vendors.  “You’ll give away all your tricks!” they’ve said.
Well, actually, no.  Here’s the main trick: this particular CIO doesn’t have any “tricks”, if by tricks [...]

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Complexity isn’t simple: multiple causes of IT failure

November 16, 2009

Roger Sessions recently published a white paper on IT complexity and its role in IT project failure: “The IT Complexity Crisis: Danger and Opportunity”.  It’s certainly possible to quarrel with bits and pieces of his analysis, and thereby tweak his numbers, but the overall thrust remains undeniable: IT failures are costing the world incredible amounts [...]

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Fits and starts: staying “tech savvy” as a CIO

November 9, 2009

Just a quick, personal post this time: I was recently interviewed by CIO Magazine on the topic of “How CIOs Can Stay Tech-Savvy“.  Since (as is normal) only a portion of my conversation with the reporter actually made it into the article, I thought I’d expand briefly on the topic here.
My remarks were two-fold, consistent [...]

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The title issue revisited: CTO vs. CIO

August 30, 2009

Given the recognized ascendancy of business/IT alignment and business change management as a vital purview of the effective CIO/CTO, should senior technology executives decrease their emphasis on technology, and focus primarily on corporate strategy and change? Should the company just have one role (call it a CTO, perhaps) do all that technical stuff, and move [...]

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Using feedback loops to improve IT department service

April 15, 2008

As I’ve written here before, I strongly advocate thinking of IT in general as a service organization to the rest of the business.
Any service organization needs one or more forms of “feedback loop” to be able to gauge whether it is successfully accomplishing its mission.  However, I’ve observed relatively few IT organizations that actively seek [...]

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Optimism, resilience, stamina: the make-up of the CTO/CIO

February 24, 2008

Here’s a disquieting little secret that few of us ever really acknowledge, maybe because it’s rather painful and also an unavoidable part of the fabric of our existence in IT. I don’t know how to say it more eloquently (or less bluntly), so here goes: being in information technology is hard. In our day-to-day dealings [...]

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Software development’s classic mistakes and the role of the CTO/CIO

January 7, 2008

Here’s a post of a type I rarely do: a reaction to an item recently posted to the Internet. Specifically, a day or two ago, Steve McConnell’s firm Construx, Inc. released their update of McConnell’s list of classic software development mistakes. This survey and its results is worth everyone’s time to read (and [...]

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Avoiding the Rubber Stamp maintenance renewal syndrome

December 26, 2007

As I discussed last time, everything you add to your environment (hardware, software) costs money in recurring fees. Part of the job of the CTO/CIO is to sign dozens of invoices, each and every week, that approve payment for the various elements in your infrastructure that have come up for renewal. And hey, we’re [...]

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