A new year, a new role. That seems to be the current state of affairs for many CIOs, with movements afoot in the industry

That noise you hear is the scrape of chairs being pushed back, laptops snapping shut and your ICT staff walking out the door. The war for talent is on again — if it ever stopped — and as with all wars, there will be victors, survivors and casualties. Identifying, retaining and developing talent never gets easier. There are only degrees of difficulty. What should you do to attract and groom good people? How can you make your IT organisation one that offers interesting roles and compelling career prospects? How can you avoid becoming collateral damage in the war?

With several multi-million dollar IT projects running concurrently and a headquarters relocation thrown in, 2009 was a busy year for Aristocrat CIO Angelo Grasso. Good project governance and short project timeframes, Grasso says, helped Aristocrat’s IT organisation to act as an enabler and ensure success.