Is the CIO Role disappearing?

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP.

I just finished reading a pretty good piece on the Enterprise CIO Forum titled Why your next job won’t be in IT by Paul Muller.

The basis for the post, according to Paul, was a question asked of one of his colleagues about the future of the CIO – more specifically, is the role disappearing?

Is the role of the CIO disappearing completely or is it just changing from one type of role to another? Is the CIO moving away from technology – or are CIO’s moving closer to technology?

Paul writes:

The fact is, the CIO role has been in transition for a long time. The whole concept of “IT/business alignment” meant that the CIO (and the IT staff) had to understand the business and apply technology to solve its problems. That doesn’t change, but the advent of cloud computing means an even greater opportunity for the CIO – the ability to offload certain capabilities to the cloud and actually devote more time to focusing on the business’ most pressing challenges.

Well said.

The future will still have a need for the CIO but it may not be the same role we see today. The role will be around, but there may be a transition coming. What does that transition look like?

I’ve written about this topic before…for example, see  Splitting IT – Operations and Innovation and The shifting role of the CIO.    Paul touches on the subject when he writes:

What do you need to be thinking about to make that transition? First of all, you’re not going to make the transition alone. Is your team ready? Do you currently have more technologists than business process experts? Do you have the people who understand multinational business? Do you have people well-versed in contract negotiations, intellectual property, and privacy laws? Do you have a strong staff that can handle the day-to-day responsibilities so you can free yourself up to become a true strategic partner to the business?  Those are the capabilities you’ll need for a cloud world, along with business analysts and enterprise architects who can map a technology to a business need.

Some excellent questions.

Capabilities are key…do you have the right staff to be able to transition from today’s CIO to the CIO of tomorrow?  How about your own skills…are you ready for the  transition? Is your team?

Great stuff to be thinking about….jump over and read the rest of what Paul has to say in Why your next job won’t be in IT.

So…no…the CIO role isn’t disappearing but it is definitely changing.  Are you ready for the change?

Image credit: disappearing norma…By Norma Desmond on flickr

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP.