If you had to, which would you choose: to be a great strategic thinker or a great strategy maker? The answer follows the same logic as the question: "Would you rather be smart or rich?"
Most agree that it's better to be smart than rich since smart people can typically make money, but dumb lasts forever. Likewise, being gifted with a strategic mind-set is worthless without the ability to mobilize organizational commitment around the resulting strategy.
When CIOs are challenged with developing a strategy, I see time and time again the tendency to approach strategy making as an analytical rather than an emotional process. As a result, there is more focus on ensuring the right content than the right commitment.
To illustrate this point, let's take a look at the typical IT approach to strategy making. Either by calendar or inclination, the CIO decides it is time to develop a strategic plan. She tasks one of her brightest staff members to make it happen within the next three months. The staffer solicits the input of the other IT leaders and defines a scope that is challenging but doable within the prescribed time line. Broad participation is required, of course, so the staffer arranges for the CIO to announce the initiative as one of the organization's top priorities and to attend the launch meeting.
Now, the strategy-making process begins. The plan calls for joint business-IT strategy making to define the business context and the implications to IT-enabled capabilities. Once there is a good understanding of the needs of the business, the process will shift to defining how to meet those needs - from a technology and an organization perspective. It all makes perfect sense until theory meets reality: gaining broad participation within the defined scope and timeline will be impossible - everybody is just too busy.
So the staffer makes a critical (and fatal) decision: to shift from strategy facilitator to strategy doer. This way, the strategy will be completed on time to serve as input to the financial planning process. In the doer mode, the staffer conducts interviews externally and internally and drafts a document that meets the original scope. The CIO presents the strategy and, everybody nods their heads and gets back to business.
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Process Trip 04 February, 2008 13:07:03
Why Maritz Travel revamped key business processes — and how business and IT came together to make it workWhen Rich Phillips became COO OF Maritz Travel about two and-a-half years ago, he sat down and took a hard look at the big industry picture - +
Ticked Off at Tick the Box Mentality 04 February, 2008 13:01:15
Does your executive search firm know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients?Does your executive search firm know its MIS managers from its elbow? Does it even know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients? - +
How to Get Real About Strategic Planning 04 February, 2008 12:50:59
Everyone agrees that having a strategic plan for IT is a good thing but most CIOs approach the process with fear and loathing. In fact, the majority of CIOs (and the enterprises they work for) are faking it when it comes to strategic planning. Isn't it time we all got real?Oh, it must be nice to be the CIO of a FedEx or a GE or a Credit Suisse. Places where IT and the business are so tightly aligned you can barely tell the two apart. Where corporate leaders understand that IT is a strategic asset and support it as such - +
Q&A: Advice on Reaching Out to Business Partners and Effective Leadership 25 January, 2008 12:30:46
IT executives need to find collaborative business partners. Leaders listen a lot so they can tell what motivates people to actIT executives need to find collaborative business partners. Leaders listen a lot so they can tell what motivates people to act
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CIO Live Podcast #79: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires Part II 05 October, 2007 06:00:00
For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders. - +
CIO Live Podcast #78: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires 28 September, 2007 17:34:25
For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders. - +
CIO Live Podcast #77: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part III 21 September, 2007 07:00:00
Part three in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance. - +
CIO Live Podcast #76: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part II 14 September, 2007 07:00:00
Part two in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance. - +
CIO Live Podcast #75: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part I 07 September, 2007 07:00:05
Part one in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance.
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Chris Hoff on Virtualization and Cloud Computing 20 November, 2008 10:55:00
Chris Hoff, chief security architect for the systems and technology division at Unisys and an advisor on the Skybox Security customer advisory board, is one of the biggest critics of virtualization security out there. Not because it isn't important - but rather because it is vital and needs to mature rapidly. - +
Cybersecurity is focus of new start-up incubator 20 November, 2008 07:19:00
Texas uni announces the Institute for Cyber Security.The University of Texas at San Antonio Tuesday announced a technology incubator aimed at fostering IT security-based start-ups within the state. - +
Dilip Sarangan on Physical Security M&A 20 November, 2008 11:18:00
Dilip Sarangan tracks physical security companies for Frost & Sullivan. He expects the industry's "need to have" products to weather the economic storm well, with the big players (now including IBM and Cisco) looking for value-priced acquisitions. - +
International Challenges in PCI Security 20 November, 2008 09:15:00
In a country that's seen many regulatory compliance challenges this decade, the headaches of PCI security tend to be analyzed from a largely American perspective. - +
PCI council sharpens oversight of security auditors 19 November, 2008 10:53:00
Quality assurance plan targets security assessors and scanning vendorsThe PCI Security Standards Council Monday unveiled a plan to sharpen oversight of the hundreds of security-service providers now authorized to evaluate merchant networks under the organization's Payment Card Industry data standards.
PGP and Ponemon Institute Unveil Inaugural Australian Data Breach Study 2008 20 November, 2008 17:34:00
Symantec Cloud Services Transform Data Centre Operations Through Proactive Management 20 November, 2008 12:06:00
Verizon Business Offers Tips to Building a Successful Unified Communications and Collaboration Plan 20 November, 2008 12:04:00
AARNet Brings 4K Digital Cinema to Australia: First 4K HD Video Signal delivered into Australia by AARNet 20 November, 2008 12:02:00
NetApp Named 2008 Citrix Ready Solution of the Year by Citrix Systems 20 November, 2008 11:33:00
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Radicati Market Quadrant 2008 on Corporate Web Security
An Analysis of the Market for Corporate Web Security Solutions, revealing Top Players, Mature Players, Specialists and Trail Blazers. Read on to discover who makes the grade.
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