How Can a CIO Advisory Help in IT Skills
Whether driven from within IT or the business, a CIO advisory is a valuable service to help the IT department grow and evolve into a business function capable of delivering value in a modern digital landscape. Here are some use cases for such a CIO advisor:
A new IT function is starting up and needs assistance to grow into its own role and become the IT department that the business recognises can meet their IT demands. A CIO advisory will work closely with the new IT team to assist in establishing governance, structure and processes. Often such a CIO advisor will be brought in to ensure that the IT function is aligned to the IT management maturity model set out by the business and also to provide an independent assessment of the IT department to identify any gaps or weaknesses in capability.
Existing IT teams can often find themselves so overwhelmed by operational issues that they do not have the time to develop or innovate. A CIO advisory will work with the IT team to identify the priority issues and to introduce new governance, processes and tooling to achieve a significant reduction in the number of operational issues being experienced. This will allow the IT team to return to a state of equilibrium and allow them to focus on innovation and development. The CIO advisor can then continue to work with the IT team to develop a longer term strategy to prevent the overload situation from arising again and ensure that the new governance and processes are embedded into the IT organisation.
How Can a CIO Advisory Help in IT Skills Assessment and Development?
It is not uncommon for IT departments to be viewed as a cost centre rather than a key asset by the business. A CIO advisory can engineer changes to this perception by working directly with the business to gather business imperatives and to translate these into viable technical solutions. They can then work with the IT team to demonstrate this capability in a business context and rebuild trust in the IT department.
Increasingly organisations are facing the need to build more resilience into their IT systems. This is being driven by a recognition that the business can no longer tolerate IT outages and the need to demonstrate an ability to support business operations in the event of a disaster. A CIO advisory can work with the IT and business leadership to identify and prioritise risk based on the potential impact of each. They can then work with the IT team and the key vendors to put in place a risk mitigation plan that reduces the risks to an acceptable level.
The need to transform the IT function into a business leader requires a mix of technical skills and a strong understanding of the business. A CIO advisory can work with the existing IT leaders to identify potential candidates for promotion to CIO and then create and execute a program of personal mentoring to support them in developing the necessary skills. This is often more effective and less expensive than looking outside for a CIO and can be a very quick way to bring the right skill sets into the IT function.