Coleman accepted her new challenge as the first CIO of Railcorp, the entity resulting from the merger of Rail Infrastructure with State Rail. She stayed with Sydney Water for a month after announcing her decision. "I don't think three or four months' notice works," she says. "You're there in body, but in mind and spirit you've gone and you're keen to move on and place your energies somewhere else."

According to Beth Jackson, principal with recruitment specialist McLean Fearnett Jackson, there are probably a lot more John Cunninghams out there than there are interim positions in Australia. She says that there are a number of CIO-level people who want to spend a few years consulting or fulfilling interim CIO roles. "But there is a lot less evidence that the client market is as ready."

Clearly CIOs in interim positions are likely to be running existing systems or executing their predecessor's strategic plan. Jackson says that where organizations want strategic engagement from their CIO then an interim position is not a sensible proposition.

If appointing an interim CIO is the technical equivalent of taking out a bridging loan to cover yourself when buying and selling property, then sometimes it is possible to get caught in the equivalent of a house selling chain - where one CIO moves on prompting a cascade of changes in their wake.

So for example when Cesare Tizi moved from Transurban into the AGL CIO role his position was taken by former Tabcorp CIO Peter Broberg. Tabcorp, meanwhile, which had merged with Jupiters and NSW TAB, appointed former Jupiters CIO George Mackey to the Tabcorp CIO role.

Broberg had at one stage been a candidate for the merged Tabcorp role, but then withdrew from that race and decided to instead retire in November 2003 and take a series of extended trips overseas. By mid 2004 he was back and refreshed. He also decided he was not quite ready for retirement.

"Cesare was at that stage advising that he was going to AGL and there was a strong interest in getting someone in as soon as possible because of the important changes that were taking place in Transurban," says Broberg. "I got a phone call from Transurban after being recommended by Cesare and one of the directors.

"I'd certainly not describe it as an old boys' network because that has connotations of favour. It's about being known and reputation that counts." Broberg adds that after initially sounding him out, Transurban then went and performed thorough due diligence and reference checks before offering him the job. "Between the phone call coming and being installed it took about a month because of the fortuitous circumstances," he says.

There was a one-week handover where Tizi and Broberg worked together, and Broberg says that since then there have been other phone calls and meetings. "You can always set your own direction but there is no need to cut off the past or not understand it," he says.

In Through the Out Door

For some organizations there might not even be a need to set a new direction, just steer the IT ship on the course set by the previous CIO.

When James Huckerby decided to move on from Panthers to Video-Ezy he felt that he had established a fairly clear path for the information systems. All his replacement needed to do was go along it. Since Panthers had appointed an IT-savvy CFO five months before Huckerby left, he felt that handing over the reins to CFO Ric Simpson probably made most sense. That is what he recommended and that is what happened.

Simpson, who had been CIO of Centaur Communication in the UK, says where Huckerby is a hands-on CIO who likes to "pick things up and shake them by the scruff of their neck", his role is more that of a facilitator of IT. For the time being he will just continue to oversee the systems and strategies established by his predecessor.

From time to time succession planning is not needed at all when a senior IT person moves on, because the role itself may become redundant. There is no need for succession planning because there is going to be no succession. That is what Russell Scrimshaw says happened when he left the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in 2002.

Scrimshaw, who is now a director of Fortescue Metals Group and an investor in a series of technology companies, says that when CBA managing director David Murray decided that the bank would be more customer focused, his role as general manager of technology, operations and property evaporated. Scrimshaw did not need to be replaced because the structure of the organization changed. So although the reporting structure changed, the CIO, Bob McKinnon, stayed put, according to Scrimshaw.

But the CBA experience is more the exception than the rule. Most senior IT positions will need to be filled when the incumbent moves on. In those circumstances effective succession planning benefits all parties - the CIO who is moving on, the incoming CIO, and the organization.

The CIO is dead, long live the CIO.