Bartholomew Cubbins, Redux September 21, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Careers, CIO Roles
2 comments
The best part of blogging is what you learn from your readers. My recent post on the role of the CIO generated some outstanding comments extending that conversation in several directions. Given the thought put into the commentary, I thought I’d use a full post to reply rather than add to the comment stream. You may want to read the comments that prompted this post before reading further. It’s OK; I’ll wait.
Now we can go in several directions:
What is the role of the CIO?
Kumud raised the idea of a “classic” CIO that is concerned solely with technology, in contrast with a “contemporary” CIO that is a more engaged business leader. I understand the distinction but think that a successful CIO is both. I think a CIO is defined to be “the senior executive who manages an organization that delivers IT-based services in support of the business goals of the company.” I believe there is a direct parallel with the finance, HR, and legal groups in a company; one can simply replace “IT-based” with the appropriate discipline to create similar roles for these service groups.
As I’ve written before (and in contrast to Kumud) I think that the CIO serves the organization directly, not the customers outside of the organization. As such, the provided services are used by other organizations to perform their functions effectively. I also think the services fall into two broad categories: infrastructure and consulting.
Infrastructure is obvious. No matter what else they do, the CIO needs to keep the lights on. This used to be the be-all and end-all of our job; we’ve now gotten so good at it that we are moving on to the consultative role. CIOs know a lot about technology exploitation, business process optimization, and intra-departmental synergies. CIOs now struggle to get the visibility and opportunity to deliver these “softer” services to the company.
Abbie Lundberg points out that good CIOs are effective in delivering these softer services and should be used in that capacity as much as possible. I generally agree, but I think we differ in deciding how far a CIO can go in this role. I am strongly tied to a CIO being a consultant to the true internal business owner; I suspect Abbie would allow a CIO to cross that line.
What about personal and career growth?
Which brings us to the points raised by Susan Mazza and John Charnovich. How can a person grow and expand their skills if they are in the “box” of a technology-focused CIO?
I am drawing a distinction between the role of a CIO and the individual who fills that role. The role changes slowly over time, but generally stays unchanged with respect to the organization. The individual, on the other hand, grows and changes and hopefully contributes more and more to the organization. How do you rectify a growing individual in a static role?
I think that’s where the consultative part of the job comes in. CIOs that want to spread their wings and learn more about the business can spend more of their time working with the business (Kumud’s contemporary CIO) and less time keeping the lights on (his classic CIO). To support Susan, Abbie, and John’s points, the CIO grows and contributes in that consultative role as they gain personal skills and deliver greater value across the business.
Can a CIO take on additional roles?
A CIO that successfully expands their consultative skills will one day be presented with the opportunity to own a bigger piece of the business. As Kumud and John note, CIOs can (and should) be growing into bigger business roles, much like a CFO may some day become a CEO.
My original point is that a CIO should not wear multiple hats, much like a CFO typically does not also wear the CEO hat. Instead, the CIO will be faced with a decision: keep the CIO hat and stay in that role, or exchange it for a different hat and a different role. As Kumud notes, someone who takes on more and more hats is destined to fail; part of owning many hats is finding people to wear them for you. As you grow your role in the company, backfill the CIO position so that you can better focus on your broader responsibilities.
I think there is an additional hazard for CIOs wearing multiple hats: the threat of playing favorites. CIOs work hard to be objective in providing services to all parts of the company equally. If you provide the services and run a group that consumes them, at some point you will be accused of favoring yourself, which could make your life a bit difficult.
Can this compromise your credibility?
We often speak about CIOs becoming more business-focused, moving beyond our technology roles. We fret about being the “executive nerd,” about our pure business skills being overlooked when the company seeks candidates for new leadership opportunities. Some think that the opportunity to engage in areas outside of IT, even if driven by our technical knowledge, demonstrates that CIOs are moving into a more mainstream leadership role.
The opposite may be the case. Being asked to join a product development team because you have important technical skills is nothing more than a high-level version of being asked to run the projector at an executive meeting. If you continue to look for ways to grow beyond the role of the CIO that involve applying your technical skills to other parts of the business, you are still trading on your “classic CIO” foundation. The real measure of your success in moving beyond the role of CIO is when you get invited to expand your contributions in ways that have nothing to do with technology. That’s the real, pure, business role we all ultimately seek.
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Being Bartholomew Cubbins September 16, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: CIO Roles, Product Design, Technology
9 comments
Consider an ice cream company. They make great ice cream and have enjoyed much success over the years. But lately, their market share is slipping, and they are feeling heat of the competition. They decide they need a new product line, a complete new set of frozen treats that will reshape the ice cream market. To whom do they turn for product design and development?
Their CIO, of course! Who better to know the vagaries of ice cream eaters?
Wrong. We all know this is wrong. They would no more ask the CIO to design ice cream than they would the CFO or their general counsel.
Why, then, do companies that develop more technical products turn to the CIO to develop and market those products? Why would anyone think that a CIO, with their deep knowledge of systems, infrastructure, and service delivery, is able to build and sell a product at a profit?
Many CIOs these days are suddenly wearing several hats: CIO, Product Development, Web Marketing, and the like. Some CIOs even have a P&L and are expected to make money for the company! Who ever got it into their head that CIOs are also savvy marketers and salesmen?
As technology pervades every aspect of our lives, computing is becoming intertwined with almost every product bought and sold. Desperate for help with all this technology, companies are turning to the only people they have on hand that seem to understand how to make all this stuff work: the CIO. If a widget suddenly has a computer in it, the CIO is called in to help design, build, market, and sell the widget. In some cases, they put the CIO completely in charge of the entire widget division!
This is a big mistake. I take great pride in being a CIO, and I work hard to be a good one. I have lots of experiences with computers and building software systems. I have no experience with developing and marketing products, whether they have computers in them or not. I should not wear that hat.
I can provide lots of advice to a product developer who has little computing experience. A person who understands the market space and has a brilliant idea, but has little understanding how computers might be used in that product, would do well to consult with a good CIO to understand the benefits and risks of the technology aspects of the product. Together, we could do great things. Separately, we’re on the verge of disaster.
When you talk about very non-technical products, like ice cream or lawn fertilizer, this seems like an easy argument to make. When the products involve lots of technology, like online banking or web-based shopping, people have a harder time seeing the distinction. I think the problem is compounded by the fact that lots of CIOs are itching to do other things and gladly accept these other hats, all with the best of intentions.
I think a CIO can get in a lot of trouble by wearing too many hats. If you want to be a CIO, wear that hat. If you want to be a product designer or marketer, wear that hat. But, like Bartholomew Cubbins, CIOs with too many hats are going to find themselves, sooner or later, all sorts of difficulties.
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Magnitude and Precision September 14, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Coaching, Expectations, Math
2 comments
A quick math test:
Paula Programmer has been assigned to write a new interface for a web-based application. She estimates that the task will take seven days. After one day of hard work, how much of the task has Paula completed?
- About one-seventh
- 14%
- 14.28571%
- Not enough information to answer.
Optimists might answer A, on the assumption that Paula estimates well and works consistently. Pessimists will always answer D, believing that until Paula delivers some code that works, she’s done nothing but shop on eBay all day. An optimist that can do math in their head might come up with B. Finally, a compulsive optimist with a calculator will answer C.
Why? Why are people instinctively drawn to numbers with more digits?
I’ll tell you why: more digits imply more precision. Many years ago, right around the time that schools stopped teaching kids how to use slide rules, they stopped teaching kids the difference between magnitude and precision. Instead, armed with calculators, kids can rattle off an answer to 8 digits, blissfully unaware that digits 2 through 7 are meaningless.
To review: the result of any computation is only as accurate as the least accurate of all the values used in the computation. If you divide a one-digit number by another one-digit number, your answer is accurate to a single digit. In Paula’s case, when you divide “about a day” by “about seven days,” you get A, “about one-seventh,” her inline shopping habits notwithstanding.
Why does this matter? We deal with numbers all the time in our jobs. As leaders, we constantly request estimates from our people, and ask them to compute cost ratios, return on investment, completion percentages, and the like. The resulting numbers are often used to justify projects, allocate resources, and make important business decisions. Often, the false precision in these numbers gives them a credibility they do not deserve, and our decisions suffer as a result.
Just as distressingly, people often do a lot of extra work to create precision where it isn’t needed. That extra precision doesn’t help, and the time wasted making the number that accurate can’t be recovered. I sometimes ask for numbers “to the nearest x zeroes” so that my people know not to waste their time creating useless precision. Thus, a request “to the nearest four zeroes” should be rounded to the nearest $10,000, and so forth. They save time, I get the answer I need, and we all move forward.
Given that the public school system long ago ceded their responsibility for effective mathematics education, we must take on that task. Effective delegation includes expectation management, and that includes defining the precision of any numerical results we request. Make sure your people know what you want and how precise you want it. You will get better answers and they’ll save time. My estimate? At least 4.32675%. Maybe more!
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Management By Colorforms August 31, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.Tags: Project Management, Teams, Tools
6 comments
As big a fan as I am of technology and tools, sometimes the simplest things really are the best.
At my company, we have some sophisticated tools for tracking our project portfolio, managing schedules, resources, and priorities. We use these tools to drive planning and prioritization meetings, as well as to help our customers understand our planning and resource processes. They provide greater insight into the ebb and flow of the work we do.
There are tools at the other end of the spectrum, too. In addition to our portfolio management system, I also keep a list of various projects on my white board. These are the projects that matter to me, for one reason or another. Some are big, some are small. Some are strategic, some are tactical. Some have great political implications, while others may be the linchpin of a critical operational process. But all of them matter to me, somehow.
Next to each project, I place a 2×2-inch vinyl square, either red, yellow, or green. This is the same kind of vinyl used in those Colorform sets from our childhood, where you would stick different vinyl shapes onto a slick black background to create pictures. That same vinyl sticks nicely to a whiteboard, and allows me to express my gut feel about a project. Red expresses grave concern, yellow shows some doubt, and green denotes that all is well.
I update the squares as the mood strikes and as updates flow in from my team. When good news arrives, a project may “go green;” bad news pushes a project down to yellow or (yikes) red.
Each day, as I arrive in the office, I place a small purple dot next to each square. If someone comes and updates me on a project, I erase all the dots next to it on my board. If a project is neglected for a period of time, the dots accumulate. If a lot of dots collect next to a project, I know to go hunt down someone and get an update.
This highly complicated scheme was originally created to help me keep track of lots of projects quickly. It certainly works in that regard. But the real value of this system is what it has done to my team.
As people come and go in my office, they always stop and check the board, looking for their projects. They want to know that they are green or yellow, and do not like being red. They want to make sure that dots are not piling up. This generates lots of conversation, which is always a good thing. The board also lets people know which projects are top-of-mind for me, although I sometimes need to remind them that projects missing from the board still matter.
Just as importantly, people must come into my office to see the board. At some point, it was suggested that I aim a webcam at the board, so people could review it from afar. I declined. I like that people must go to the board to see what is going on, and I like the quality conversations that ensue. I am also told that people stop by when they know I am not here, for a “safe” peek at the board. That’s OK, too. As long as people are talking and interacting, good things will result.
In spite of all of our fancy tools and systems, simple things often work best. What’s the simplest tool you use to be an effective leader? Have you considered Colorforms?
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The Effective CIO 