Economic decline and increased understanding of technology have lead organizations to re-evaluate the proper placement of their most senior IT leader. This series of articles is aimed at reducing the complexity of this evaluation to three manageable phases.In our last article, we discussed Phase 1: The Business Value of IT. Today, we will review the needs of the IT organization and the IT leader(s).
Phase 2: Evaluting the IT Organization’s needs:
Once the predominate business value of IT is identified, the process becomes easier. The next step in placing the IT leader is the evaluation of the IT team’s needs and that of the CIO/CTO. Meeting these needs is crucial to promoting the long-term success of the IT organization.
The CIO/CTO like every other resource in an organization needs the following four types of support from their supervisor:
· Sufficient political capital to propel their vision.
· Sufficient time with the supervisor to understand and implement the primary objectives.
· Proper opportunities to contribute to the organization.
· The ability to learn from their supervisor and grow as a resource.
A significant shortage of any of these needs will reduce the effectiveness of the IT leader and the IT organization.
Prior to placement in the org chart, I suggest asking the following questions of each potential supervisor using a bottom up approach. Starting at the bottom will increase the likelihood of identifying a supervisor who has sufficient bandwidth to maximize the potential of the team. You may be surprised to find the best candidate is not a member of the C-level but instead a VP or director.
User demographic: What percentage of the user demographic is represented by the potential supervisor's division? Will this supervisor be able to motivate the user demographic and foster cooperation with IT?
Political capital: Does this individual have sufficient influence on strategy?
Team Support: Does this position have the ability to secure the funding necessary to support the team and its needs?
Growth opportunities: Effective IT teams need to continually expand their knowledge of available technology. Does the potential candidate understand this need?
There are many more questions you could ask of the potential supervisor. However, this skeleton should give you a solid starting point for the interview.
Join us tomorrow as we move into phase 3: Evaluating the IT Leader.
About the Author:
Brian Blanchard is a highly accomplished professional who is successful in creating vision, identifying opportunities, building organizations, and delivering strong revenues and profits within intensively competitive markets. His strengths include anticipating industry changes and driving the introduction of new products, services, and best practices to improve market positioning and strengthen bottom-line financial performance.
He is skilled in partnering with clients, teams, vendors, and management to guide the architectural design, development and delivery of customer-centric technology solutions with high ROI.
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