Enable change

What do the following chief information officers (CIOs) have in common: government CIO John Suffolk, BA IT chief Paul Coby and Deutsche Telekom Group CIO Peter Sany?

The answer is that all three are committed to a service and metrics-driven approach to IT, combined with a proactive approach to business change.

CIOs are able to work successfully across diverse domains because they have engineering mindsets that can deliver on time and on budget to specification, while meeting agreed service levels.

You may achieve these goals, yet waste money and miss opportunities if your colleagues do not buy into the change programme within their own groups.

Such collaboration requires IT-enabled business change skills from the CIO, the IT department, the executive team and ultimately the whole business.

One option for acquiring expertise is to hire high-powered business IT consultants who understand how to apply technology. Such experts might have an MBA or business background that includes exposure to successful projects.

Although the solution sounds simple, a CIO focus group I ran recently concluded that such consultants are both scarce and costly. This approach also relies on a small group of people acting as intermediaries and does not change your company's underlying culture.

Technical people will continue to have a back-room delivery mentality, while business users ask for requirements that are not well considered. Both groups end up relying on the business IT consultants to make a satisfactory connection.

As a more sustainable alternative, leading CIOs look to up-skill existing staff because they understand the company’s systems and processes, unlike new hires.

Peter Sany has sponsored a professional development programme at Henley Management College for 40 high-potential IT staff. The programme leads to a Masters in enterprise information management.

Initially aimed at about one per cent of IT professionals, the initiative has a network effect as participants spread the word and influence their colleagues.

John Suffolk engages a network of CIOs in the public sector and organises education seminars that all staff can attend.

Suffolk has a competency lead for business change and his group has promoted the inclusion of a set of relevant skills in version three of the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).

The SFIA is a good starting point for any manager who wishes to benchmark their existing skills.

Finally, Paul Coby’s role covers both IT and business change. He has promoted the message of “business not IT projects” inside and outside his firm.

Yet there has been a significant gap in the education arena for material concerning IT-enabled business change that does not assume prior knowledge.

The gap has been filled by a BCS qualification and a forthcoming book, both of which I was happy to be associated with because of my experience as a former CIO and a business school teacher.

My view, reinforced by talking to CIOs, is that all IT professionals should have core knowledge in three areas: service management; project management; and IT-enabled business change.

A broad awareness provides a base for specialising in one of these disciplines, or in areas such as security, enterprise architecture or information management.

The above-mentioned IT-enabled business change qualification and book are also aimed at business professionals. Our aim is for them to be better equipped for dialogue with IT specialists, leading to improved requirements and solutions.

You might think business change is someone else’s responsibility, but take note of director of information for the Metropolitan Police Service Ailsa Beaton, who says CIOs need to engage colleagues with a message that puts business benefits at the heart of any IT-driven change.

Without this, we cannot realise the potential offered by new technologies.

The challenges for IT leaders

As I noted in an earlier blog, my scope is in three main areas: IT-enabled business change, information management and the CIO role. Recently, I have been focusing on developing knowledge, qualifications and workshops in the first two areas, both of which impact the CIO.

IT-enabled business change

The new ISEB foundation qualification has been launched and I am now writing a book on the subject. It has been challenging and enlightening to capture the corporate, academic and consulting experience of doing business change in one place.

One of the challenges faced by CIOs who are moving into this area is to define the scope and skills required to succeed. My view based on this book and a new course we are developing at Henley Management College is that business change professionals need to be competent in four different areas: processes, people, information and technology. This is starting to happen but very few CIOs and their teams are equally comfortable in all these areas and how they fit together.

Information Management

The Information Management model developed by the IM profession group (including members from Yell, Met Police, MOD, IBM, BCS, CILIP and Henley) has been well received. People seem to like the key message of the model which is that information management has been split into four different worlds due to different technology, language and skills. We need to find ways to integrate these worlds.
A new ISEB qualification in Information Management is being proposed. I am presenting a draft syllabus at a workshop on 6 July. Organisations and individuals are being asked how they can contribute to the development. It’s another potential challenge/opportunity for CIOs to focus on the ‘I’ as well as the ‘T’.

How can IT leaders improve?

My learning, practice and advice is firmly around the question: ‘How do you, as an IT leader, improve yourself and your business?’ This doesn’t just apply to CIOs; it applies to senior IT professionals and also business leaders of IT

There is no shortage of advice for IT leaders from a range of sources. I seek to contribute through workshops, articles and columns such as the ‘Ask the Experts’ section in Computing Business magazine. But I would like this blog to be more a reflection of what I am personally working on and who I am working with.

Broadly, my patch is about IT-enabled business change, information management and the CIO role. In this scene-setter, I will outline some of my current activities.

IT-enabled business change

I am excited by the new ISEB foundation qualification in IT-enabled business change which I believe fills a key gap. When I was invited to join a group to develop this qualification, I had one concern. This is a subject I teach at Masters level on the Henley Management College MBA. Could we cover this in three days of study with a valuable qualification at the end? Well, the work has been completed – so we will soon see the reaction.

Information Management

I am working with managers who are passionate about raising the capabilities and reputation of information professionals. This idea has been embraced by both the main professional bodies, BCS and CILIP. Together we formed an IM Profession group that will be presenting at the IM Solutions event on November 28. We want to help IT leaders extend their influence from structured to unstructured information and from control to exploitation of information.

CIOs

Many chief information officers (CIOs) are only now coming to terms with the middle initial of their title, although unlike some commentators I believe technology remains a major differentiator. I interact with many international managers in my work at Henley and as a management consultant. It is clear that CIOs share a large number of challenges politically, professionally and personally - and that’s a subject for a later blog.