Not Just the CIO's Responsibility

It's not just the CIO that's responsible for the effective use of IT.

A recent survey by Gartner indicated that Chief Information Officers (CIOs) now need to have non-IT business unit management experience if they wish to pursue new CIO opportunities.

In many organisations, particularly governmental, the CIO still does not have direct report to the CEO, and does not therefore sit at the boardroom table.

Part of the reason for this is the lack of non-IT management experience, so that the CIO is still seen as a "techie", rather than a business manager.

It's a a chicken-and-egg situation: the best way of getting general management experience is for the CIO to sit at the boardroom table, and yet the CIO is often prevented from gaining general management experience by being barred from the boardroom table.

It's a fundamental block in the effective use of IT, and aligning IT with Business needs.

An even more fundamental block is the implicit assumption that the effective use of IT is the job of the CIO and the CIO alone.

Even that most excellent of magazines CIO, both the USA and UK versions, appears to have the underlying assumption that everything connected with IT is the job of the CIO.

If this were the case, then the effective use of people would be the job of the HR Director alone.

And the effective use of Money & Finance would be the job of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) alone.

Responsibilities like these, IT, HR, Money & Finance, and other key resources - are the job of every manager.

In fact an implication in IT Governance (see the Weill & Ross book), is that although the CIO is obviously at the forefront, the ultimate responsibility for the effective use of IT rests with the whole senior management team.

Education and experience therefore cuts both ways. If business is to get full value with IT then business managers need education and experience in IT.

That is, while it is true that general management experience will help the CIO, it is equally true that appropriate IT education & experience of senior management - and of every non-IT manager - will enable more effective use of IT, and alignment of IT with Business needs.

The HR function has a vital role to play in all of this, because it doesn't just come down to education and training in Business-with-IT. There is also the issue of changed mental models and business change programmes, so as to get Business and IT in a Partnership Paradigm, rather than the Us v. Them Paradigm that frequently prevails.

P.S.
We're not talking education in point-and-click. By appropriate education we mean MBA-type IT education - of a practical and integrated nature.

And by IT experience we mean nitty-gritty experience like business process mapping, preparation of development testing and use cases, and side-by-side collaboration with IT people.