The job of the CIO has not evolved in isolation, but it has developed in response to two major factors:
- The rapid change in technology and the way it is employed.
- The recognition at company board level of the value of IT as an asset and not overhead.
In the “old” days, the CIO (then a DP manager) was less concerned with people management and pay and rations; that was the job of human resources (then the personnel department). In that role, the CIO was keeping the IT show on the road, and was often a report of the finance director since most IT work was financial.
Today, the CIO is a different person who sometimes sits on the Board of a company or at least has a voice that is heard. Often, I read articles about the CIO that do not address how the role has changed from evolving technology to traditionally HR roles, such as pay and people management. The keys to the CIO job are to exercise absorbing these functions and to handle the changing IT environment to deploy it where it fits.
In other words, CIOs are responsible for IT, from business support from inception to retirement of those IT systems. The knowledge and ability needed by a CIO may be summed up as follows:
- Capacity to see beyond pure technology and to exercise lateral thinking.
- A knowledge of the basics of current technology that underpins the plethora of implementations of them. For example virtualization, abstractions (such as software defined networks – SDN), clouds and systems management.
- Enough knowledge to question designs, applications, etc. to wrinkle out issues. For example, frequently asking the simple question: "and what will that do for our business?"
- Immediate access to details arising in the course of work, for example, SaaS (software as a service) or SDS (software-defined storage).
- Personal skills in writing, body language, time management, project control, the ability to play devil's advocate and other traits which make a CIO more efficient.
- Attention to skills development – Not only the CIO but also his staffs', all of which should be dictated by current business requirements and potential IT solutions, not the flavor of the month announcements.
- Be well-read, and able to form opinions, and action plans, based on research, so they can talk confidently to vendors and ask pertinent questions.
- Be an agent of change for a sound business reasons.
Finally, CIOs should learn the ten commandments of IT:
- Do not put technology before thy requirements.
- Manage resources wisely and squander them not.
- Don't be moved by the siren sounds of vendors who seek to ensnare you and move you from the paths of righteousness.
- Learn those disciplines of IT righteousness.
- Tend to the businesses and lead them into the pastures of eternal secure, functional and performant uptime.
- Love your users as thyself for IT's and the business's sake.
- Do not pull any wool over the users' eyes to hide any SLA (service level agreement) sins.
- Deliver documentation at all times according to the IT scriptures.
- Regularly instruct your IT reports in the ways of computing.
- Love IT for its own sake and do not forsake it not for the lures of mammon.
In this, thou wilt be deemed worthy of the name Master CIO.
