My good friend, and partner at CIOEssentials.com,  Gene Delibero asks a few interesting questions in a post titled “Certification: No Guarantee of Competency – But it Can’t Hurt” on CIOE.

In this post Gene highlights the pros/cons of IT Certifications and asks these questions:

Do you rely on IT certification when hiring? What has your experience been, good or bad, when hiring IT resources with or without certifications? Do you have an IT certification or more than one? Have they been helpful to you in your career as far as being a gate item or helping you get more money?

Some interesting questions here that might be worth looking at.

When I’ve hired folks in the past, I’ve looked at certifications as part of my overall view of the candidate.  If I’m hiring for a Database Administrator, a DBA certification helps me understand that this person has knowledge in the area…but it doesn’t help me determine their experience or skills in the area.

On the other hand, if I’m hiring for a Project Manager for a large enterprise implementation, a Project Management Certification like the PMP really doesn’t do much for me.  The PMP certification tells me that the user has experience in the project management world and has passed a test…but it doesn’t tell me anything about that person’s real abilities.

At the end of the day, the certification helps quantify a candidate’s skill-set but not their abilities and experiences.

The certification is a piece of the puzzle but, in my mind, a small piece.

What’s your thoughts?  Leave a comment here or jump over to Certification: No Guarantee of Competency – But it Can’t Hurt and leave a comment there.

I just finished reading “Managing” by Henry Mintzberg.

Great book.

What’s so great about it?  It provides a good reminder that being a good manager is just as important as being a good leader.

Mintzberg does an excellent job of bringing the importance of managing well to the forefront.

Like I said…good book.  Buy it today at amazon (affiliate link).

CIO as Manager or Leader?

I ran a quick unscientific test on google and searched for “CIO as Leader” and “CIO as Manager”. The results weren’t surprising:

• “CIO as Leader” – 45,900 results
• “CIO as Manager” – 14,800 results

Not surprising to me since most articles I’ve read (and a few that I’ve written” talk about CIO’s and Leadership.  But there aren’t as many discussions about CIO’s and Management.

Mintzberg’s “Managing” book might help bring the art of managing back to the world of IT and the CIO’s office.

So which is it?

The role of IT is changing and the CIO must lead that change while also ensuring that the IT group is performing for the organization.

The CIO must be a both a Leader and a Manager to bridge the gap between strategy and tactics. Lead the strategic initiatives while managing the tactical operations for the organization.

Both sets of skills are necessary for The New CIO.

I’ve got a few pet peeves.  Linear Thinking is one of them.  Another one is talking about doing something but never doing it.

I’m not talking about ‘not following through’ on things.  That’s a performance issue and one that can be addressed with some coaching and basic management skills.

What I’m talking about are those folks (or organizations) that like to tell everyone how something should be done, why it should be done or why it’s important for the organization to do ‘project X’.

I’m fine with being told how or why something is important…everyone has their opinions.  But don’t tell me the same thing for 6 months without ever taking a step forward and doing something about the project. If you think Project X is so damned important, then DO IT.  Or Don’t.  Just stop talking about it.

There are a lot of reasons for people to talk about doing something but not executing. Analysis Paralysis can kill any project before it starts.  Lack of courage is a killer too (you know…those folks who are scared of making decisions?).   Ego plays a role as well (people like to show how smart they are right?)

I’ve run into many leaders within organizations that talk about undertaking the big ’strategic’ projects.  And they talk.  And talk.  Talking doesn’t “move the needle” (sorry…I promised someone I’d insert “move the needle” into this week’s blog post….they’re playing buzzword bingo and I want them to win!).  Talk without action does little more than frustrate people.

The New CIO has to “do it or don’t”

We all know  the foreseeable future of an IT group will be one of being understaffed and overworked.  There are a lot of projects that need to get done and a lot of projects that won’t get done.

The role of the future CIO is one of project executive. The New CIO has to step up as a decision maker and decide (along with the leadership team of the organization) which projects get funded and which don’t. After the decision is made, communicating that decision down the chain of command has to be done quickly and efficiently so the the entire organization knows what projects are a ‘go’ and which aren’t.

You notice that in the last few paragraphs I never say that the CIO and his/her IT staff should stand around talking about the projects and why they are important. There isn’t a lot of discussion about why Project X should be done.  A decision is made whether it should be done or not and the team moves on. The New CIO has to take the lead in not talking things to death and just get it done.

Now….I’m not saying you should stop discussing the value of a project or a strategy.  Quite the opposite actually.  You should discuss. You should debate.   That’s something that must happen.  But…there is a time when the debate has to end and something has to be done.

The New CIO needs to foster open debate on a subject but quickly make a decision.  With resources as constrained as they are in this economy, talking means wasted time and money.

Discuss, Debate, Decide.  Either DO or DON’T…just stop talking about it.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Join me next week for another article in the series.

This is a short one….lots going on this week.

I got a lot of great feedback on a post I wrote titled “Consultants – Do we need them?“.  In that post I argue that consultants are necessary…not a necessary evil mind-you…but a necessity for modern day IT organizations.

One of the lines of that struck a chord with most folks was:

That’s exactly what any good consultant should do….help the organization understand how to change to adapt to new realities.

What do I mean by that?

Modern day IT is not the same as IT from 20 years ago…or even IT from 5 years ago.  Every CIO has to adjust to the new reality of IT of today and the future.

I believe that 99.9% of CIO’s in this world cannot adapt to the new IT reality without some assistance from experts who understand the new IT realities. I don’t say the above to be hateful.  I think the majority of the CIO’s today are extremely bright and they ‘get’ their current reality but these same smart CIO’s are much too close to their current reality to fully understand what needs to occur to be prepared for the future.

Bringing in the right consultant is key for moving from today’s reality to tomorrow’s.  Find a consultant focused on delivering value to you (rather than selling a technology platform) and you’ll be golden.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Join me next week for another article in the series.

I ran across an interesting post today titled “Why you don’t need Social Media Consultants” on the Brains on Fire Blog.  The main thesis of the post is: “social media consultants provide little value…they do nothing more than you already know how to do so you don’t need them”.

In the article, Spike Jones says:

If you listen REALLY closely to their [social media consultant's] advice, you start to realize that most of it you already know. Because you have all the basic tools you need: Your humanity. Your ability to communicate with people around you. And your intuition. Because when you think about it, using social media is just a natural extension of yourself. Asking questions. Listening. Responding. And remember, social media apps are tactics. And tactics are tools. Sure, you might need some guidance on how to use that bandsaw, but you picked up a hammer and pretty much got the gist after you hit your thumb a few times.

In other words, we’re getting all worked up about (wait for it, wait for it) common sense. Common courtesy. And the best way to find that is to take off your marketing hat and use the hat you were born with – being a person.

Emphasis mine.

I have an issue with this statement.  Most organizations don’t know how to be human anymore.

Before I continue…I wholeheartedly agree with the premise of Spike’s argument (i.e., we already know how to be human) but I would argue that most companies have removed much of humanity from business.  Many organizations have been built to remove the human side of the business and have replaced it with processes and management…I’ve written about this before in a post titled Humanity and Business“…jump over and read that post for more on the subject of bringing humanity back to business.

Take a look at Jay Baer’s comment on the above article.  In the comment, Jay makes a few valid points…one of them is:

What social media consultants do best – at least those focused on tactical agnosticism – is to help companies connect the dots, align internal resources, and understand not that social media is about more than tools and pressing buttons, but about a cultural shift that manifests itself up and down the organization.

Amen.  Re-read that (and Jay’s entire comment)….did you catch the powerful stuff there?

A good social media consultant should help an organization bring about cultural change. That’s exactly what any good consultant should do….help the organization understand how to change to adapt to new realities. Whether that reality is purchasing a new software platform or using social media to build relationships with clients.

Back to my original question: Do you need consultants? Hell yes you do.

Why?  Here’s a few reasons:

• Consultants bring an external view
• Consultants bring experience
• Consultants bring expertise
• Consultants bring relevance
• Consultants bring authority

Whether you like it or not, consultants are a necessity.   Perhaps most organizations don’t need a social media consultant…but most organizations do need help understanding how to be more human.

That’s what a good consultant (social media or otherwise) sh0uld bring to the table.   A good SM consultant should help organizations understand how to be more human while building relationships with their clients.  A good IT consultant should help organizations bring humanity back to the IT organization by helping the organization understand that IT is more than processes, workflows and reasons ‘not to’.

Do you need consultants – yes you do. If you’re looking for a consultant, find one that ignores the technology, buzzwords and tools (at the beginning) and talks about your organization, your needs and hopefully they will also talk about being more ‘human’.  Find a consultant that talks about ‘humanity and business’ and hire them on the spot.  You’ll not regret it.

Last week I wrote about “Turbulence, IT & The New CIO” and discussed the need to embrace agility and speed in order to address the turbulence that we see in business today.  In order to be agile, I mentioned the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) model for use in helping keep agility at the front of your mind while planning and doing.

After writing last week’s post, I ran across an article by Kathleen Eisenhardt from titled “Making Fast Strategic Decisions in High-Velocity Environments“.  In this article, the author reports on a study that was conducted to compare the speed of the decision making process and the performance of those decisions at eight microcomputer organizations.

At the time of the article’s publication (1989), popular belief (and much research) stated the following:

• Leaders & organizations should be autocratic
• Decision making should be centralized for speed and control
• When planning, an organization should look at future projections, not operational data
• Careful analysis of the ‘best’ option should be performed
• Fast analysis means less data

Sound familiar to anyone?  I still see a lot of organizations and leaders following this approach today, especially in the IT space.

Eisenhardt’s research showed something interesting.  She was able to show that those organizations that made quick decisions were more apt to use more information and look at more options than those that made slow decisions.  The data also showed that centralized decision making isn’t the fastest route to a decision; organizations that shared data with a larger audience and welcomed feedback were more apt to perform better in the long run.

I won’t go into the full outcome of the research, but I wanted to highlight a few of the key propositions from the paper:

• The decision making process speeds up when you make use of real-time data
• The decision making process speeds up when you increased the # of alternatives considered simultaneously
• The more integrated your decision making process is, the faster it can go
• In “high-velocity environments”, the faster the decision making process goes, the greater the performance.
• Politics slows decision making and degrades performance.

So…what does this have to do with IT?

Everything.  To compete in the turbulent world today, we’ve got to be agile in our thinking and execution.  This research helps highlight that fact.

Organization’s, and especially organizations that use technology, are high-velocity environments.   We are doing more with less and have to do it faster than before.

The faster we can make decisions with more accurate data (real-time) and the more options we review, the better that decision outcome will be in the long run.  Will every decision be correct? No…but it will be a decision that moves you a little further.

If you take the OODA approach discussed last week, you’ll be making decisions, acting on those decisions and immediately looping back to review the post-decision environment and determining what needs to be tweaked in your strategy for the to reflect the ‘new’ environment and to prepare future.

Integrated Decision Making

One of the outcomes of the research showed that decision making processes worked better when they were integrated with each other.   Eisenhardt reports that in those organizations that had strategic planning integrated integrated with tactics (see my thoughts on this topic in Minding the gap between Strategy and Tactics), performance improved.  In addition, those leaders who brought together people from different parts of the organization during the decision making process performed better.

Surprised?  This is why it’s such a huge issue for The New CIO to be engaged and involved with the organizational strategic planning process and be tied in with other groups and teams’ decision making.    Eisenhardt reports that making decisions with as many options as possible using as much real-time operational information as possible is the key to performance…CIO’s should take this and run with it.

The New CIO needs to take research like this to heart.  Use all the data you can, include your team and others from the organization in your decision making process.  In addition, as CIO you need to push for inclusion in other teams’ decision making process.Ensuring integrated decision making with the proper people & data, you’ll be able to mind the strategy/tactic gap and act in an agile manner.

References

• Eisenhardt, K. (1989). Making Fast Strategic Decisions in High-Velocity Environments. The Academy of Management Journal, 32(3), 543-576.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Join me next week for another article in the series.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges.

I just read a ‘call for papers’ from Cutter IT Journal with the title “The Great Recession Fallout: Will CIOs Be Elevated or Exterminated?”  It doesn’t look like they’ve posted this latest call for papers on their website, but you should be able to find it there sometime soon.

While I’ve already been thinking about this topic for some time (an example can be seen in last week’s post titled “The Future of IT & The CIO“) it’s good to see  there are other folks thinking about the same thing.

A passage in the email really made me stop and think about what we (industry, IT & CIO’s) are doing.  Here’s what caught my eye:

No longer singularly pursuing either an innovation or an efficiency agenda, CIOs may now need to pursue both as their firms are driven by both the need for efficiency and the fear of having an obsolete business model. While CIOs have for some time been asked to contribute in strategic and tactical ways, has this recession pushed them too hard down both paths?

Take a look at that last sentence and think about it. We’ve been pushing (and been pushed) to do ‘more with less’ for quite a while now.  We are being asked to be strategic and tactical.  Our IT Staff are being asked to be both technical and business savvy at the same time.  This is a fact of life…but is it a reality?  Are we really able to do everything asked of us?

Can you really focus on the strategic and tactical at the same time?  Can you really expect your technical staff to interface with the business?  Have we cut our staffs and budgets so far that we’ve cut out ability to deliver real value? Are we running on empty these days?

Great questions (I think anyway).

Can you (or your team) really do it all?

There is a point at which you and your team become overloaded.  In a normal economy, this overload could be offset by hiring new staff, but in this recession there’s no new staff and many organizations aren’t bringing in new contractors either.  At some point, the overload becomes too much and you and/or your team need to pull back the effort or you’ll overload your circuits and burn yourself or your team out.  Just like the fuel gauge shown above, you and your team will be running on empty.

The New CIO needs to know when they can take on the extra work and responsibilities and when they need to push back at the organization to ensure proper staffing levels.

In addition, the New CIO must ensure that they have the right mix of IT staff.  If we’re being asked to be both strategic and tactical, you better have some folks who can do both.  If you have to interface with the organization, you better make sure you have IT staff who can interface with the business.

Lastly, as I’ve said before, in this age of doing more with less, the New CIO has to lead by saying no as much as they can.  The organization has to understand what the IT group is capable of and what will take additional staff and/or budget.

Keep your eye on your team and make sure they’ve got a bit of fuel left at all times.  Keep working hard and moving closer to your goals…but make sure you aren’t killing your staff.

Take a few minutes and ask yourself and your team: Can you really do it all?  If the answer is no, start building a business case for what needs to change, how it needs to change and why. That business case needs to land on every leader’s desk within the organization and you’d better drive hard to make the changes necessary.  If you don’t you might just find yourself looking at a staff who’s running on empty and an economy that has just moved out of the recession…and you’ve got no way to do what needs to be done to take advantage of the changes.

That said, if your organization was working right, the recession would be the time to invest in additional staff and projects…not cut staff and projects.  But that’s a topic for another post

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges.

So you want to be a leader?  Great..hope you get there.  Will you be willing to do those difficult jobs a leader has to do? Will you be willing to say no?

When I talk about ‘difficult jobs’, I don’t mean the tough projects or difficult work…I mean the really hard tasks a leader has to undertake.  Things like saying no.  Giving feedback (the bad and the good).  Making decisions to cut budgets and staff.

Anyone can lead during the good times when you’re growing and able to say ‘yes’ all the time.  You remember those times when budgets weren’t so tights and your staffing levels were full?  They were good times weren’t they?  It was fun being a leader then wasn’t it?

Well….actually…it should be fun today too…but remember that you’ve got to take the good with the bad.  It might’ve been fun leading IT in the good days…but if it was all fun, you were doing it wrong.

The New CIO has to be able to lead during good times and bad.  The New CIO has to do the fun stuff and the not-so-fun stuff.  You’ve got to make those difficult decisions that make other people unhappy.

One of the most difficult things to do as a leader is to say no but it’s something you’ve got to do.  You can’t say yes to everyone and/or everything.  If you do, you’ll get a team and organization standing around wondering where they’re headed and why.

Saying No

Saying “no” is a powerful thing. No can mean rejection, disappointment, being wrong, being right and a whole host of things.  The one thing it doesn’t mean is ‘yes’….well…unless you or the person saying ‘no’ is a psychopath.

Even though ‘no’ can be a horrible thing to hear, it’s a word that must be used in order to lead.  It’s a necessary word for The New CIO. You’ve got to say no to those ‘cool’ projects.  You’ve got to say no to new staff.  Sometimes you’ve even got to say no to budgets.

Even more importantly, you’ve got to be able to say no to the organization.  This might just be the toughest thing of all You’ve got to say no in such a way as to help the organization understand your declination.

The New CIO has to help the organization understand what can and can’t be done.  We can’t do everything and can’t please everyone in this age of smaller budgets and staff.  Some things have to be passed over and The New CIO has to help the organization understand which technology projects should be undertaken and why.

Saying No is important for another reason.  Your staff needs to understand that you’re their leader and can make a decision. Saying yes to everything doesn’t engender respect for very long.  Your staff also needs to know that you’ve got a plan and can think strategically….you aren’t strategic or planning if you’re saying ‘yes’ to everything.

Saying no is hard…but necessary. Saying no helps the IT team understand where they are headed and it helps people understand priorities.

Saying no and making other difficult choices keeps your IT staff (and organization) from standing around wondering what they should be working on and where they are headed.

Stepping into any leadership role (IT related or not) requires hard work and difficult decisions. You won’t (and can’t) make everyone happy so don’t even try.  Make the decisions that are best for your team and organization…they might be tough decisions but you’ve got to make them.

The New CIO has to be willing to make those tough choices and to make those tough choices, you’ve got to say no.

Join me next week for another article in The New CIO series.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges.

Earlier this week, I listened to an interesting webinar hosted by Michael Krigsman and led by Chris Curran.  The topic of the webinar was the CIO’s role in success or failure of IT projects. Great webinar with some excellent folks. Both Michael and Chris provided after-action blog posts about webinar…you can jump over and read them at:

• IT failures town hall recap: Exploring the CIO’s role – Michael Krigsman
• The CIO Role: One of Influence or Control? – Chris Curran

Chris has a few great points on his post (did you read it? Please do).  Basically, he asks whether the CIO’s role is one of Influence or Control.

Great question…because it gets to the heart of the issues we see today in organizations & how The New CIO can influence the organizations to succeed (or fail) in the projects that are undertaken.

Command & Control – The Old Model

IT groups (and organizations) have historically been run in the command and control mentality with the CIO being the one that commanded IT and taking orders from the CFO, COO or CEO.

This worked well in the old days of legacy systems,  centralized application & centralized IT.  Those days are leaving quickly with users quickly adopting web applications to get their jobs done quicker.

The New CIO – Influence First

As Chris suggests,  the CIO’s role in the future will be that of influencer in large organizations and influencer and controller in medium and small organizations.

I believe The New CIO will have to be an influencer first and foremost. The New CIO will need to influence both upward (to the CEO), sideways (CFO, COO,CMO, etc) and downward to their teams.  She’ll have to find ways to build consensus on the “right strategy” while keeping an eye on how to implement that strategy and continuously building the best the she can.

The New CIO & Projects – Influencing Success

There are a lot of things you can do to improve project success, but the most important method to improve things are often the most overlooked. Those overlooked items can be addressed via Influence…either by influence others in the leadership team, influencing the organization’s project selection or influencing the ability to deliver.

Here’s a few examples of what The New CIO can do to influence project outcomes:

• Influence others within the organization – This helps ensure that the projects undertaken by the organization fit the organizational strategy as well as the technology strategy for the company.

• Build relationships with the other CxO’s & VP’s – CIO’s have been notorious for not have good networking and relationship building skills.  Work on that. The better you understand your peers, the better you can understand what their needs will be.

• Clearly communicate what success /failure means – Does your team / organization understand what a successful project looks like?  Do you have people who think that a successful project means one with zero problems?   You need to let the organization know what success looks like.

• Build your project management team – Project Manager’s are a dime a dozen.  Certified Project Manager’s are too.  But GREAT project managers are hard to find.  Go find one, hire them, pay them well, give them the ability to lead your project team(s) and watch out.  BTW – Project Management Certification does NOT equal good project manager.

• Build your project delivery team – How many times has a project slipped because of manpower?  If you have the ability, dedicate some of your staff to be project delivery staff…take them away from the busy work that most IT folks find themselves buried in.

• Improve your relationship(s) with your vendor(s) – You need your vendors. You need them to make money and you need them to be happy.  Don’t treat them like second class citizens.  Your vendors can make or break your project.

• Improve the lives of your contractors – Do you use contractors for most of your projects?  Then you need to see above.  You need your contractors to be happy too.

• Stay Involved – A CIO that doesn’t say involved in projects is setting themselves up for failure.  Staying involved doesn’t mean you need micromanage or be in every project meeting, you The New CIO needs to stay close to the projects to be sure to see any problems that might pop up.

There are other things (feel free to share your thoughts in the comments) but as you can see, project success / failure hinges on the soft skills…those pesky people skills.

On that topic – People Skills + Analytical Skills

While analytics and metrics (project schedules, % complete, etc) are necessary, you need to be able to talk about your projects with your team & with the organization.  Engage in discussion early and often to see what’s happening in the project(s) and what can be done to address any issues.

Don’t wait for someone to bring you a problem…talk to folks and find the problems before they come up.  Have meaningful conversations about the project(s) and even take time to debate the issues to find solutions.  Add this rhetorical skill set to your project team’s skills, and you’ll see an increase in the success rate of your projects.

The New CIO – Project Manager in disguise?

Kind of. Perhaps project manager is the wrong term but you will need to be a Project Leader.  On top of the other items on the plate of The New CIO, you’ll need to do everything in your power to ensure project success.

Help the organization pick the right projects, make sure you can implement those projects by building a great delivery team and stay involved in the projects as much as you can (do not micromange…just stay involved).

Any other suggestions for The New CIO to take help influence projects along the road to success?

Join me next week for another The New CIO article.

“None” is Not a Social Media Strategy by Chris Curran on CIO Dashboard

Web 3.0 Is Coming – Are CIOs Ready? bt Dr. Jim Anderson on The Accidental Successful CIO

Blame storming – one of the signs of weak management by Mark McDonald on BLT: Business Leadership and Technology

“Social Learning” Will Be a Core Design Element in the Knowledge Workplace by Jon Husband on The AppGap

Do You Have These 11 Traits of Highly Creative People? by Dean Rieck on Copyblogger

Kill Change With Too Many Priorities by Steve Roesler on All Things Workplace

Transparency, Clarity, and Trust by Jamie Notter on Get Me Jamie Notter

How to Make Your PMO More Visible by Brad Egeland on Project Management Tips

Management is What and How by Rosa Say on Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching

Leadership is Why and When by Rosa Say on Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching

How to Make Scary-Big Stuff Happen by Taylor on Men With Pens

When Information is NOT the Answer by Andrew McAfee on Andrew McAfee’s Blog

IT for execution: It’s not how much you spend, it’s how you spend it by Don Sull on Don Sull’s Blog

Death spiral! by Seth Godin on Seth’s Blog

Elsevier’s Prototype: Is This The Scientific Article of the Future? by Marshall Kirkpatrick on ReadWriteWeb (hat tip to Gene De Libero for the link)

Making Big with Small by Don Frederiksen on Lead Quietly