How can IT leaders improve?

My learning, practice and advice is firmly around the question: ‘How do you, as an IT leader, improve yourself and your business?’ This doesn’t just apply to CIOs; it applies to senior IT professionals and also business leaders of IT

There is no shortage of advice for IT leaders from a range of sources. I seek to contribute through workshops, articles and columns such as the ‘Ask the Experts’ section in Computing Business magazine. But I would like this blog to be more a reflection of what I am personally working on and who I am working with.

Broadly, my patch is about IT-enabled business change, information management and the CIO role. In this scene-setter, I will outline some of my current activities.

IT-enabled business change

I am excited by the new ISEB foundation qualification in IT-enabled business change which I believe fills a key gap. When I was invited to join a group to develop this qualification, I had one concern. This is a subject I teach at Masters level on the Henley Management College MBA. Could we cover this in three days of study with a valuable qualification at the end? Well, the work has been completed – so we will soon see the reaction.

Information Management

I am working with managers who are passionate about raising the capabilities and reputation of information professionals. This idea has been embraced by both the main professional bodies, BCS and CILIP. Together we formed an IM Profession group that will be presenting at the IM Solutions event on November 28. We want to help IT leaders extend their influence from structured to unstructured information and from control to exploitation of information.

CIOs

Many chief information officers (CIOs) are only now coming to terms with the middle initial of their title, although unlike some commentators I believe technology remains a major differentiator. I interact with many international managers in my work at Henley and as a management consultant. It is clear that CIOs share a large number of challenges politically, professionally and personally - and that’s a subject for a later blog.