Larger Business CIO’s Can Fail The Basics Too

I guess it is nice to know that many of the issues that I write about for SMB’s, can take place in larger businesses too!

But on the flip side – I must confess that it is a bit disappointing as well.

Arun Manansingh on his A CIO’s Voice blog recounts an issue with the chief information officer (CIO) at a larger organization that exemplifies many of the IT concepts I discuss here for smaller businesses.

… During the process it was discovered that several systems would crash twice a day everyday and this has been occurring for several years. It happened with such regularity that staff just lived with it and accepted it…..The CIO had no desire to change this process. “This is how I have always done it and this is how we will continue to do it!””

So yes; That CIO needed to be replaced.

I know that to line of business and executive management, IT can seem like a black box that you pour money in, while hoping something of value drips out the other side.

But It Doesn’t have to be that way!

And no, I do not mean that as a business executive you need to become a computer genius.

Just this past November, a Canadian business periodical targeting growing businesses published a column of mine on just this issue. It covers many of the basic steps that I have written about.

I fully admit that your IT Leadership should be starting the business discussions with you.

However, if they are not, and you just let that sit there and let it fester, you are abdicating, not delegating your IT management.

The goal of business isn’t to generate activity; it’s to produce business results, and yes – action must be taken (sooner rather than later) if those results are not being provided.

Who Should Ask These Questions?

I’m glad you asked!

The individual asking these questions must be senior enough within your business to be responsible for, and accountable for that responsibility.

In other words, it cannot be a junior controller who cannot ask the hard questions. Who cannot demand responses in reasonable time frames about reasonable activities.

The SMB Takeaway

This is not an overnight question or answer. It the day to day blocking and tackling you need to determine that you are receiving the value you need from your IT spending.

And I can gaurantee that if these questions start to be asked, that you begin finding that you have better visibility into your IT.

And yes, sometimes it may mean replacing underperforming IT Leadership

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Hiring SME IT Leaders: Results Or Skills?

As small to medium business Owners or Managers, at some point you realize that the time has come to look for some leadership to take control of your IT  team.

Like most businesses, in your early stages of growth you probably hired your IT staff based on particular skill sets that you needed. Perhaps those skills were with certain Point of Sale systems, database software or email servers, etc.

While skills and experience are critically important when supporting and fixing your existing technology and software tools, that requirement for a particular skill level begins to change as you begin looking for higher levels of IT leadership. Those exact skill sets can become less relevant than business results.

That is not to say that there can be zero technology skills!

As SME managers, we need to wear many hats. That includes your IT managers. We need (‘we’ meaning  business technology leaders) to maintain our technical skills, but we also need to grow the more business results oriented strategic planning, relationship, and project skills.

Skills, Results: Let me paint an example

As a growing business lets imagine that you have reached the point where you have decided that you need to invest in a larger resource planning (ERP) or financial application.

This can be a huge investment, so after many discussions with your peers, and maybe a consultant or two from your local Chamber of Commerce, you think that a particular product will be perfect for you. Lets also assume that those same discussions convinced you that to support this type of technology initiative, you will need to go beyond your current break/fix  tech geeks to a true business technology leader who can be responsible for delivering the value you need for this investment.

Answer this question;

When you call the placement agency, or publish the advertisement, what importance do you think skill with the product you chose should carry in your hiring decision?

The answer is not necessarily much!

Next, lets assume you are now interviewing a few candidates for that IT leadership position.

One particular candidate looks excellent. She has great recommendations, and has successfully implemented ERP or financial software a few times already!

But! she has never used, or even seen that particular ERP or financial vendor’s product that you want to implement. Do you think that matters? Do you write her off the short list?

Here is a tip!

A strong business technology candidate will pick up different software skills easily. Example; I was once flown in to fix a problem with software environments I had never seen before, it was less than two days until I understood enough to fix the issue.

It is the skills to discuss, negotiate and implement the processes behind the software are the harder ones!

Your candidate can demonstrate that he or she has obtained the results that you are looking for several times, it is only because each time she was using products that are competitive to the product you have chosen that you are considering knocking her off the short list.

So in this example, the demonstrated results this candidate can show far outweighs their lack of skill with your chosen software package.

The SMB Takeaway

Skill and experience with a particular product can be critical when you are hiring someone to babysit a particular tool or product, but demonstrated results is the critical metric when you need leadership to provide business benefits from your IT investments.

Hire Well!

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Where Is Your Planning Horizon? (Part 1)

What Is Your Planning Horizon?

I was going to do this in one post, simply because I envy Olivier Blanchards wordsmithing, but he puts told you so! to my post of; Talent vs Experince!

I surrender, so this will now be the first of two of them, part one the general idea, with part two being one specific example.

I have to be the first to say it, (OK I’m not the first!) it is probably an issue that you as the executive or general management of a small to medium business have complained about for years.

But have you found that too often IT staff in the SME space have somewhere between zero and short term only thinking in their planning horizon?

Simply put; if that short term only planning horizon cannot be improved, you cannot improve service and lower costs within your IT spending.

(And if you have been having doubts about your IT Leadership, just ask the question of what goals they have going on their planning horizon!)

Within the SMB space, IT staff or suppliers tend to simply plan that for that server upgrade, that new firewall, or that new software you want, and generally the planning is short term and simply trying and keep the status quo moving along.

In reality, there is no inherent problem with this short type planning horizon, – in fact someone has to be looking at it. But in your senior IT staff or IT leadership, you also have to be thinking in other time horizons.

So here is a quick look at some of the time horizons your I believe that your IT leadership should be looking at;

Short Term

As I stated above, you do need this short term planning horizon: It is the specific, immediate actions for particular results. These results can include anything from particular upgrades, resource hire (or exits!), and the myriad of IT Operations and Infrastructure planning required by your organization. Consider these the “Known-Knowns” events that will be happening in the short term to keep the status quo moving along.

Medium Term

Some expert will call me wrong in my wording here, but I consider the medium term planning horizon to be analogous to a chess game; starting the moves that allow me to get to my  long term horizon. Let me call this the “Known-Unknowns”.

I say this because you won’t (and can’t) know everything that is going to happen, We can’t be sure because there will be because something won’t work, something else may be too expensive, or the technology just changes.

So you have to be flexible and be ready to modify. We know there may be twists, turns, or dead ends, but we can visualize and plan for a framework that gets us to our vision made in the long term horizon.

Long Term

Be warned, the long term horizon will always be a moving target in IT! (see this oldie titled; learn to dance) But I consider this to be the end state of an improved service, a reduced cost, or a new proficiency.

My “knowns” does break down here because I don’t want to call it an unknown – unknown. That implies less vision than I believe is necessary, because you did know enough about the end result you were looking for. Even if you could not put it in a project plan.

Again, in Part 2, I will demonstrate this in a little more detail

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Photo Credit Not Quite a Photographr via flickr