New deputy CIO must possess change management skills, says Bill McCluggage

The new government deputy CIO will need a fresh set of skills to manage public sector ICT transformation, Bill McCluggage the current deputy CIO told Computer Weekly.

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McCluggage is to step down from his current role in January to join storage company EMC as a technology consultant. He said he was returning to Northern Ireland to spend more time with his family.

The recruitment of the new deputy government CIO will be subject to an open competition environment, he said: “I’ve helped produce two strategies and I feel it’s time to move. I also think some fresh blood would be good.”

The next deputy CIO must be able to manage the cloud environment the government is putting in place, its Public Services Network and data centre consolidation, as well as open source, said McCluggage.

“One of the key areas of this role is change management, which also requires having good people skills. That’s particularly necessary when we move into the cloud environment and the way we deliver security and assurity and customer capability,” he said.

“They will need to continually improve their skills and competencies, particularly when you look at SMEs, the SaaS [software as a service] environment, cloud arbitrage, while also thinking about the role of services integrators,” he said.

McCluggage said he is looking forward to going back to his roots as a systems engineer with the new role at EMC. “I am a technocrat at heart” he said.

“I’m making sure I finish a number things before I leave. There’s still a lot of work to do on vendor management, we are in discussions with some larger software suppliers. I also want to see the work of the CIO delivery board with the CIO council,” he said.