Analyst Gartner has tabled its "10 CIO resolutions for 2009" to
help CIOs excel and deliver better personal and team outcomes
beyond their core IT agenda.
"The unfolding
economic crisis of late 2008 has created
a more challenging situation than many businesses and most CIOs
have ever experienced," said Mark Raskino, an analyst at
Gartner.
"They face
a daunting and uncertain year ahead. Many CIOs have already
been instructed to
operate with lower budgets and many more expect such
instructions. Chief executives need to cut short-term costs very
quickly to cope with volatile market sentiment in many industries
and countries, but without damaging recovery growth prospects,"
Mark Raskino said.
Gartner's 10 CIO resolutions for 2009 are grouped into four
strategic themes:
Theme 1: Reinforce enduring strengths and assets
1. Start building an alumni network: To maintain
legacy skills and complex
experienced pools of labour, Gartner recommends CIOs establish
alumni networks. This could include a semi-official company IT
alumni association with its own web page,
use of web social networking tools and re-establishing bounty
schemes, where staff are paid for recruits they bring in.
2. Stop being the exception that enforces the rules: In tense
times, leading by example matters more than usual, from body
language to dress code, and from vocabulary to attention-span. CIOs
should design and adopt two or three key behaviours to match the
required direction they want their reports to follow such as
turning away their option to upgrade to the glitziest new
smartphone. Such signals will cause people to comment and think
about their own values and behaviours.
3. Start scouting for key talent: As large numbers of laid-off
people flood the market, some salary-level attrition is inevitable
and even good people could find themselves without a position for
months.
Theme 2: Prepare for the next change, sooner than you think
4. Start preparing for the unexpected: "It's important to
challenge and develop the thinking styles and frame of reference of
your leadership team as well as yourself. We advise CIOs to find
people to join the discussion who don't fit the existing mould and
perhaps even deliberately choose people who will irritate the
majority," said Gartner.
5. Start using social systems yourself, visibly. Gartner says
that
CIOs need to start visibly using social networks themselves to
kick-start their participation from other staff. Lurking in
quiet observation is not enough. Gartner advised CIOs to
encourage the leadership team into using social media more
openly to communicate internally and externally to rebuild
brand confidence, energise the company culture, develop ideas and
refine solutions.
6. Start taking cloud seriously: Cloud computing is a
major new stage in the evolution of commercial IT that CIOs
must take seriously
but at this stage it can be confusing. In 10 years, much of IT
will be served this way, so CIOs need to start leading their
organisations safely in this inevitable direction, or risk being
sidelined by its progress. They should first set aside a reading
day in 2009 to immerse themselves in the issues, terms and
sub-trends, then personally subscribe to and test a variety of
cloud applications.
Theme 3: Survive in 2009 without collateral damage
7. Stop ignoring people and opting for soft targets: CIOs will
be under pressure to be seen taking swift action. There will be
temptation to cut quickly in areas where staff is working on
longer-term goals that suddenly seem less relevant. However, CIOs
should not lay off the people they will need long-term and who will
be hard to replace just because their work is not an immediate
deliverable (for example, enterprise architects, emerging
technologies staff). Instead, they should require their temporary
tactical redeployment elsewhere. Similarly, they shouldn't cut
projects in areas which are in the hype cycle 'trough of
disillusionment' just because they are unfashionable. CIOs should
defend them if they will still yield significant value in a year or
two.
8. Start offering your
vendors a free lunch: CIOs will require vendors to
deliver flexibility and cost savings and will need to reset the
style of the relationship. At the same time,
suppliers will be keen on staying in close touch, working hard
to attract CIOs off-site for 'face time', so CIOs must resolve to
politely decline vendor courtesy trips in 2009. Both sides must
give ground and CIOs must signal a reset to a new style of
interchange.
9. Stop fearing the future and start driving it: CIOs should
reflect conspicuous frugality but not be defined by it. They should
resolve to occasionally and visibly splash out a little - where it
really matters to staff moral such as training courses or software
development tools. Work on real money saving such as flying economy
instead of business class, but avoid empty-gesture cost cutting
such as taking cookies off the plate at management meetings.
Theme 4 and Resolution 10 - newer technologies to get experience
of in 2009: With so much work to do, Gartner reminded CIOs that
they need to protect the time to stay in touch and get 'hands-on'
with some key technologies in 2009:
e-book readers
Google Chrome
Building mini cloud applications
YouTube as a default search engine for a day
HD teleconferencing