Musings about running an IT organization:

How to rank managers:

1. The worst managers get nothing done.

2. Bad managers bully their staff to do the work, then do it over so it gets done as they think it should.

3. Better managers supervise the work to make sure it gets done.

4. Effective managers oversee processes that orchestrate the work so it gets done, almost automatically.

5. Effective managers who are also excellent leaders build organizations capable of doing whatever work needs to get done, without their intervention.

The challenge facing excellent CIOs:

138 factors determine the effectiveness of an IT organization (we’ve counted). Of these, a CIO can control or influence fewer than 50. And while IT exists to deliver, enhance, maintain and operate working technology that supports the business … and the principle means of doing so is to establish and follow mature, well-designed processes … a CIO controls or influences only 16 factors directly related to processes and technology.

At least that’s true of excellent CIOs. Those prone to micromanagement succumb to temptation and try to use many of the others as well.

The nature of IT strategy:

Many CIOs seem to shy away from developing a formal strategy. Two reasons seem to dominate. The first is that many CIOs, unsure as to what constitutes an “IT Strategy,” are bashful. They have a plan, but are concerned that if they call it a strategy, someone who knows what a strategy really is will ridicule their pathetic attempt at publishing one.

In case you’re among them:

The simplest way of explaining what an IT strategy is … and isn’t … is that it’s the porfolio of everything the CIO is supposed to be personally involved in making sure happens.

The portfolio subdivides into two categories of activity. One faces outward to the business — the small number of high-profile, high-risk, high-payback undertakings that support enterprise-scale business goals. Call these strategic programs and initiatives (business-strategic, that is). The other faces inward to the IT organization, and addresses an equally small number of very important improvements to organizational effectiveness and capability — generally, those critical to IT’s ability to successfully complete its part of the business-strategic programs and initiatives.

Why IT strategy rarely turns into IT action:

The second reason many CIOs shy away from developing an IT strategy is how often and how quickly IT strategic plans seem to turn into dusty three-ring binders.

The way to ensure your IT strategy doesn’t turn into a dusty three-ring binder is to integrate it into your planning process, as was mentioned in this space years ago. Organizations ignore strategies for two reasons. One is that some strategies state intentions without defining a roadmap for their achievement. Without a roadmap, nobody knows what they’re supposed to do, so unsurprisingly they don’t do it.

The other reason is that strategic planning and resource planning are independent of each other. When all IT staff are assigned full-time to projects and day-to-day work, nobody has time left to implement the strategy. And so, unsurprisingly, they don’t implement it.

The solution is self-evident in principle but difficult to achieve in practice. As is true of every course of action, for an IT strategy to be more than good intentions you need a design and a plan. The design describes what you’re trying to accomplish. The plan describes the actions necessary to achieve the design, and the staff and other resources needed to undertake those actions.

Putting it together

Excellent CIOs build IT organizations capable of doing whatever work needs to get done. Defining what’s needed to build their organization is half of the IT strategy — the inward-facing half.

It’s something of an irony that the CIOs most successful at delivering what the company needs from IT — the other half of the IT strategy — spend the least time and energy directly engaged in the delivery itself. They delegate that, confident that if they build a great organization, those to whom they’ve delegated responsibility for delivery will succeed at it.

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If you’re looking for a serious guidebook on the subject of IT strategy, you could do a lot worse … and not much better … than to buy a copy of the second edition of A Practical Guide to Information Systems Strategic Planning by Anita Cassidy. It’s practical (hence the name), and thorough. If you follow it you won’t have to worry — the result will inarguably be a real IT strategy.