1996: Top 5 IT Executive Management and Technology Topics
Source: Gartner Group Inc.'s IT Executive Program
Management Issues
- Aligning of IT Strategy and Business Strategies
- Managing Distributed Computing
- Creating an Information Architecture
- Creating a "Federated" IT Organization
- Benchmarking and IT Metrics
Technology Issues
- Distributed Systems Management
- Network Management
- Data Warehousing
- Workgroup/Groupware
- Client/Server Architecture
Critical Traits of Successful Senior IT Executives
- Change Process Manager: Ability to participate in or manage change
- Business Acumen: Building and maintaining a strong sense of and for the mission and vision of the business.
- Pathfinder: Having a curiosity for technology and how it can be applied to generate business value.
- Marketing: Ability to sell and market themselves, their vision and their capabilities within and outside the organization to create visibility for themselves, their organization and their enterprise.
- Leadership: Ability to anticipate, identify and respond to changing business priorities and needs while building and maintaining an "esprit de corps" among IS professionals.
- Workaholic: Willingness to do whatever it takes to help the business succeed.
Core Competencies for senior IT executives and IS organizations in today's business and technology environment:
- Flexibility and adaptability
- Ability to manage complexity and continuous change
- Using process as a key capability to enable dynamic product capability
- Understanding human behavior vs. organizational structure as the key IS organizational enabler
- Moving to more flexible, "federated" organizational structure to leverage internal and external resources
- Having business foresight and strategic thinking as key competencies.
How do CIOs spend their time? Most CIOs divide their time along the following distribution:
- 40% on technology issues (e.g., planning and project management)
- 30% on "business" issues (e.g., relationship management, policy and service strategy)
- 30% on human resource issues (e.g., internal and external sources and skills)
How are senior IT executives measured by their key stakeholders?:
- Contribution to the business' bottom line
- Increasing business efficiency and cutting IT unit costs
- Increasing customer satisfaction: For both internal and external clients
- Project management: Meeting deadlines on time and within budget
- Information Management: Getting the right information to the right people at the right time to create business value
- Esprit de corps: Building and maintaining IS professionals/ moral and employee satisfaction
Copyright © 1996 Gartner Group. All rights reserved.
Used by Permission.