IT failures town hall recap: Exploring the CIO's role
Yesterday's IT failures town hall discussion brought together CIOs, analysts, IT practitioners, and journalists to explore the CIO's contribution to project success and failure. Click the player at the top of this post to listen.
Chris Curran, Partner and CTO at Diamond, (NASDAQ: DTPI) a strategic management and technology consulting firm, led the discussion while I facilitated.
A broad range of conditions informs the CIO's ability to oversee the IT organization and its projects. The CIO's skill, experience, and even managerial style all play a role in determining whether IT projects successfully achieve business goals and expectations.
This town hall focused on steps CIOs can take to create the conditions where projects can flourish. Significant among these is working with other business leaders to ensure that IT executes according to the needs and priorities of business stakeholders. Although this seems an obvious point, continued high rates of project failure suggest it remains an area of serious deficiency in many organizations.
The discussion shed light on the pressures, expectations, and difficulties facing CIOs. In some organizations, the CIO does not possess the management or leadership expertise required to execute the job properly. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that can be a tricky situation for both CIO and the organization.
In contrast to this session's focus on the CIO, the previous town hall discussed the role of business stakeholders in contributing to failed IT projects. Listen to that presentation for perspective on that important topic as well.
Listen to the podcast by clicking the player at the top of this post. The discussion was fantastic, with great participation from a highly informed and engaged audience. If you are interested in CIO issues, I urge you to listen to this recording; your investment of time will be rewarded.
[Image from iStockphoto.com]