CIO: “What do you want?” CEO: “What can you do for me?”
CA Ashwin Dedhia, Director – MAIA Intelligence
When you see this kind of dialogue happening in your organization it emphasizes that there is no IT road map clearly defined, there is no joint dialogues happening with IT team and business users and there is no common objective shared by both CIO and CEO. There has to be proper defined common mapping between IT team and business users to achieve the corporate vision with IT enablement.
As a CIO most your budget and energy is spent on just keeping the lights on, not initiating or driving change, let alone transforming the business. As a CIO you are very good at fire fighting and problem solving, but no one in your IT team is focused on analyzing future trends and understanding demand — what is likely to change, why and what the impact will be. As a CIO how do you deemphasizes and defocuses your attention from just the day to day; and stops you from sailing in circles and plots a course for your success enabling innovation and growth.
I suggest developing a ENTEPRISE VISON MODEL with CIO CEO and management team
• What is ENTEPRISE VISON MODEL — what does it comprise?
• What the scope of ENTEPRISE VISON MODEL — what does it cover?
• What is the result ENTEPRISE VISON MODEL — what do you get when you’re done?
• What is the benefit ENTEPRISE VISON MODEL — why do organizations do this?
• What is the timing of ENTEPRISE VISON MODEL — when do we implement it?
Let me explain you with a practical example with how you will apply the ENTEPRISE VISON MODEL with a BI project.
Success in BI project can be defined as the ability to add real insight to the business and enhance the decision making process. To further understand the likelihood of success with a BI initiative, organizations — both CIO and its IT team with Management and business users — should assess their own BI priorities. In other words, how ambitious and determined is an organization in its desire to promote BI? The best outcome becomes more probable when the CIO IT team with management and business users has an equal amount of ambition or priority, and they work in concert to deliver valuable and sustainable BI solutions to the enterprise. In contrast, when the CIO IT team with management and business users has low priority, BI cannot succeed. Likewise, when the CIO IT team without management and business users, stands alone in trying to promote BI to a disinterested end-user organization, BI fails. Finally, when high end-user priority exists without the CIO IT team active participation, the blind acquisition of package applications takes hold.
Steps for establishing ENTEPRISE VISON MODEL EVM
LEAD
1. Know and engage key decision makers as individuals and as colleagues
2. Guide the board and executive about IT capabilities needed and available
3. Communicate a clear vision and agenda for IT-enabling the business
4. Implement effective IT governance
5. Communicate business imperatives to the IS organization
6. Build and sustain personal and positional credibility
ANTICIPATE
1. Business sense: Identify key business cycles and investment climates
2. Technology sense: Track technologies and their implications
3. Competitor sense: Monitor your competitive environment
4. Enterprise sense: Know your enterprise critical business drivers
5. Political sense: Know who sets agendas and why
6. Cultural sense: Understand your people, their values, belief systems
STRATEGIZE
1. Envision IT-enabling the business to achieve business growth and profitability
2. Shape informed expectations of both business and the IS organization
3. Forge partnerships between business and the IS organization
4. Synchronize IT investments with business goals
5. Select appropriate investment, funding and charging strategies
6. Develop and sustain an enterprise IT architecture which supports the business
ORGANIZE
1. Focus the IS organization as a professional services organization
2. Configure the IS organization to deliver cost-effective services
3. Attract, nurture and sustain people and resources
4. Manage resources prudently, balancing cost/growth initiatives
5. Ensure succession planning is in place
6. Orchestrate and perpetuate a vital IS organization
DELIVER
1. Build (or provide access to) well targeted capabilities for agility and/or low cost
2. Set demanding timetables to drive value delivery
3. Ensure business continuity and security arrangements are in place
4. Implement disciplined and quality-based program and project management
5. Source IT services strategically
6. Manage partnerships and alliances effectively
MEASURE
1. Track and communicate the business value of the IS organization
2. Track and communicate the business value of IT enabled investments
3. Assess and communicate the total cost of ownership
4. Implement and assess service level agreements
5. Build and sustain a real time executive dashboard
6. Ensure a benefits realization process is in place
Best Practices to develop the ENTERPRISE VISION MODEL (EVM).
- Charter Your EVM
- Develop (and Execute) a Communications Plan for EVM
- Treat Each Iteration like a Project within EVM
- Start With the EVM Business Strategy and Obtain Business Sponsorship
- Do the Future State planning Before the Current State planning with EVM
- Be Pragmatic with you EVM
- Don’t Forget Governance in EVM
- Set Up a Measurement Program of EVM
- Track EVM Program Maturity
- Pay as Much Attention to Competencies as to Skills to make successful EVM.
I am sure with the EVM applied the statement will be “CIO: We can get benefited by BI DW deployment” “CEO: Yes I could see that deploying 1KEY BI has full value for money”
On the lighter note humor on CIO:
Five surgeons are taking a coffee break…
1st surgeon: “Accountants are the best to operate on because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered.”
2nd surgeon: “Nah, librarians are the best. Everything inside them is in alphabetical order.”
3rd surgeon: “Try electricians! Everything inside THEM is color coded.”
4th surgeon: “I prefer lawyers. They’re heartless, spineless, gutless and their heads and their butts are interchangeable.”
5th surgeon who has been quietly listening to the conversation: “I like to operate Chief Information Officers… they always understand when you have a few bugs, unsolved problems left over all the time.”
Posted on February 12th, 2008 by Ashwin Dedhia
Filed under: CIO Community, Emerging Trends, Entrepreneurship, View Points & Perspective
Leave a Reply