Jean Fahmy

Chief Information Officers don't have it easy. They often feel squeezed by impossible budgets, ridiculous business demands and techno-ignorant colleagues. I know, I've been there. In the last 10 years through my different companies, I've acted as a virtual CIO for countless small and medium sized companies.

Looking back, I can say that my biggest challenge never was any of the aforementioned. It was usually about communicating a solid definition of what a CIO can and can't do, managing expectations from the onset and delivering. Sounds easy, and it is when you have this tool. It's a poster that now adorns my office wall.

In 2006, CIO Magazine came up with the "IT Value Matrix," after 18 months of collaborative effort, as a tool to let IT stop being defensive about what it costs the firm and go on the offense by articulating the value it provides.

This is how it works:
"The matrix identifies approximately 130 components, grouped under three key practice areas' stakeholder alignment, communication and the CIO role. It's organized for drilling down from general to specific. For example, to achieve stakeholder alignment, CIOs need both knowledge and action. To learn what type of knowledge, you drill down one level and find four types: stakeholder analysis, political and cultural issues, technology trends and business dynamics."

In tandem with the Matrix, the CIO executive council developed "Seven Keys to IT Leadership"

1. The primary goal of IT is to align with major enterprise objectives. Every initiative must be clearly tied in a provable way to business value.

2. Because all major business initiatives are dependent upon technology, the CIO must have a voice at the table at which key business decisions are made.

3. The CIO is responsible for understanding a business’s complexities, influencing peers and presenting technology strategy in terms the business can understand.

4. Technology leaders are agents of change. Transition is our stable state.

5. Communication and relationship building are as important to IT leadership as technology skills are.

6. Successful technology leadership must strike a balance between competing forces: short-term versus long-term, technology versus business focus, leading versus enabling.

7. The CIO is responsible for cultivating technology leadership at all levels.

If you're a CIO, you need this.  If you have a CIO in your team, do your company a favor and go over this with the CIO. If you use technology in your company, this tool will help manage expectations.

The file is available in this post too. Start enjoying your CIO life.

it_value_matrix.pdf
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