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New CIO?
Your Clock is Ticking

Here's a quote from a recent job posting for the new CIO of a 250-person company that is looking toward an IPO:

Measures of success in first 12 months:

• Creation, maintenance and implementation of internal IT Action Plan
• Definition and fulfillment of Service Level Agreements towards other departments
• Successful implementation and/or improvement of internal systems for Sales, including order management, sales force automation, contract management, analytics and metrics, data warehousing
• Successful implementation and/or improvement of internal systems for other departments (Web hosting, lead processing, bug tracking, configuration management, quality assurance, development, customer support management, training management, consulting, and ERP (F&A)
• Reduction of telecommunication cost through VoIP
• Uninterrupted availability of >200 servers in data centers in two data centers
• Accolades from organization about help desk quality of service and responsiveness, supporting laptops, desktops, PDAs, phones, routers, email, browsers, VPN, Internet, WLAN, DSL, etc.
• Planning and implementation of SEC reporting and SOX compliance with regards to IT practices

Whoa! That's a huge order! You have been asked to make a significant difference in a short period of time, using a staff that has little experience in the next steps for the organization and that is already overworked with its operational responsibilities. Furthermore, the changes you are expected to make involve the entire company, not just your own organization.

You may have a well-developed vision for your first six or twelve months at your new company, but how do you actually turn that vision into reality? Your primary focus is going to be people-oriented: You need to develop relationships with your peers and your executive staff, and you need to understand and assess your team. You aren't going to have much time to design processes or develop detailed plans.

That's where we come into the picture. We are not interested in telling you how to run your IT organization and we don't sell software systems or pre-packaged processes. We listen to you, make any suggestions that we think are helpful, and then knuckle down to do the work that you don't have time to do.

Consider that a new CIO in a soon-to-be public or mid-market company should do at least some of the following:

• Conduct and analyze an initial Customer Satisfaction survey, and develop a plan for addressing major issues raised by the survey.
• Develop or revamp a Governance process for IT spending.
• Establish or re-establish Service Level Agreements (or less formal Service Level Objectives) with internal customers.
• Design training plans to correct any deficiencies in your employees' skills.
• Establish a PMO (Program Management Office) and a "culture" of project management.
• Create a marketing program to "sell" your ideas and changes to the company and ensure that your positive impact on IT is visible to everyone.

These are all tasks that we have undertaken on behalf of other new CIOs just like you. And that freed them to do what new CIOs should be doing: Building the trust and confidence of peers, employees, executive management, and the Board.

Copyright 2006 by Free Dog! Consulting Services. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is a violation of US and international copyright. All images copyrighted by their respective owners and used by permission.