What is the single most important tool every CIO should use?

1. A strategy that clearly aligns with the organization people, process maturity, financials and culture.

2. Goals for all staff that are a combination of measurable and also soft skill based. Many groups have goals that are to technical and do not address behavior.

3. A communication plan for engaging customers.

4. Effective steering via well defined deliverables.

5. Relationships driven by being active and visible. You have to manage across all dimensions and that can only occur if you are talking with people. The best way to capture indicators is often via informal. communications.

6. Do not get buried in analysis. Even seasoned exec's can get caught up in the act of chasing more and more data.

7. Spend more time on preventative measures (educating) then digging for causes.

#1 challenges of IT: IT ignorance, staying with an open mind, IT as a cost center ?

Multiple directions:
 - "IT ignorance" I do not want to say always, because it is not true, but often the people that would like to improve IT do not know what they talking about (e.g. virtualization, cloud computing.)
- "Stay with an open mind" do not stop to look new technology or better do not stop to put passion on your work. Do not see where you are or where you have arrived but always where do you want to go?
 - Sometimes IT is becoming HR. I find the CFO reporting relationship to be a red herring. In fact, an extremely effective CIO I met reported to the CFO. Part of her effectiveness was that the CFO lent financial rigor to her initiatives, and made them an easier "sell" to the CEO.  If IT acts like a "cost center", it will be treated like such. It is extremely rare to see a CIO who is unfairly "oppressed" by their CFO; usually they are treated like a "cost center" since they don't know anything about their business, and are constantly pitching technology "solutions" rather than solving business problems.

Gartner SYMPOSIUM ITxpo 2011 - Barcelona, Spain

The World's Most Important Gathering of CIOs and Senior IT Executives
7 - 10 November 2011 | Barcelona, Spain

Agenda

Keyspeakers

IT professionals need to become business leaders first and technologists second

Execution plays a vital role in IT. I also feel that CIO should align the IT resources with the organization business strategies and priorities which will build a stronger and more agile IT workforce. The ultimate result will be services that are more efficient, transparent and responsive to the organization. 

What is the role of the CIO/IT Director?

The role of the CIO/IT Director is to act as the business owner for IT, ensuring that whatever competitive advantage or operational efficiency that might exist, is identified, prioritised and implemented. With the increasing emergence of ubiquitous technology, the danger is that for IT leaders who fail to grasp the challenge, they will be usurped by their colleagues in finance who albeit mistakenly believe good IT is easy and who will then take those decisions unilaterally, leading to poor IT decisions. In my opinion, it is the age old argument between "IT and the business", it is a misnomer. You do not hear "Sales and the business" or "Finance and the business", IT leaders need to wise up and realise they ARE the business and take ownership, be business leaders first and technologists second, just like their boardroom colleagues are in their respective disciplines.
Unless you can achieve this, then you are the biggest threat to the long term health of IT in your business.

Should CIO report to CFO?

Increasingly I've noticed that CFO are taking over the overall control of IT department & making the CIO report into the CFO. I guess the thought process is that in this competitive market CFO wants to keep a control on IT budget and make sure every penny is spent wisely. However I wonder if every IT initiative can be looked at keeping short time benefits in mind, does the financial background of CFO enables them to look at bigger picture or long term goal? I strongly believe few large IT initiative cannot be always looked at from the profit & loss point of view rather long term returns, business benefits and efficiency. Sometimes its good and bad to roll IT into CFO organization however it largely depends on the business model and objective where an organization want to go.