What skills do you need if you aspire to be a CIO?
When I ran a focus group with CIOs they were clear that business and personal skills were the most critical gaps to address. That would suggest an MBA and/or leadership training. The CIOs commented that this education needed to be post-experience to be of real value.
When the CIOs reviewed IT professional management qualifications there was more debate about the value. Some believed these were necessary in order to build IT as a profession. Others questioned the benefit of a qualification relative to experience in a fast-changing industry. This issue was mirrored in a BCS survey where 88% rated experience as high importance compared with 41% for qualifications.
More than 50% of the BCS respondents wanted to see greater standardisation of qualifications. This is a view shared by Peter Shores, Regional VP Executive Partner at Gartner, who works closely with top CIOs and proposes greater alignment between academic and professional qualifications. While experience remains the key ingredient, Peter believes that over time IT staff would benefit from standard qualifications as demonstrated by other leading professions.
My own background as a CIO was supported with a professional IT qualification and an MBA. These gave me the foundation and the confidence to discuss issues in both IT and business terms. Now, as associate professor and programme director at Henley Business School, I am on the other side of the fence, developing qualifications.
In the past year, I have become aware of a number of new post-experience masters qualifications in IT. I view this very positively as delivering the best of both worlds. Professionals relish the opportunity to gain a theoretical underpinning and apply this to resolving real-world problems.
Before outlining these new qualifications, let me describe my own accountability for creating a Master of Enterprise Information Management for a large European multinational. I was pleasantly surprised in summer 2007 to see a tender specification that covered a holistic group of business-driven IT topics that aligned with the positioning of my new book on IT Enabled Business Change.
Henley’s proposal to construct a two stage programme covering strategy development and execution was accepted and in 18 months, 35 IT professionals successfully completed the core programme. This encouraged 27 of them to take the optional management challenge project. The most gratifying outcome is the value that participants’ managers and the Group CIO have seen directly in the organisation.
These results reinforce my strong support for post-experience masters IT qualifications. Last year I was introduced to Martin Frick who heads up the e-skills group for EuroCIO, a member organisation for major European organisations.
As the European CIO for Avis, Martin became a key supporter of qualifications. EuroCIO is now sponsoring a Masters in Enterprise Architecture (EA). This subject is a module on my own masters programme hence I recognise the challenge in making it relevant to organisations. EuroCIO members chose EA due to the lack of masters qualifications and they are helping an international consortium to design the programme.
Bridging a gap was the rationale for another initiative. Recently, I was invited to externally appraise a new Master of Information Leadership qualification developed by City University London. This facilitates progression of mid-career information professionals to a leadership role. It is a part-time programme giving IT professionals the opportunity to link education to their work activities. City has raised the bar with an MBA-level price point, based on the ambitions of their target audience and quality of support given. During my review I was impressed by the commitment and passion shown by the course directors who include a former CIO.
Finally, closer to home, my colleagues in Henley Business School have created an MSc in Business Technology Consulting. What is notable about this qualification is that it has been developed in partnership with Capgemini and one module will take place at Capgemini University in Les Fontaines, France. Dr. Sam Chong, CTO at Capgemini UK, highlights this qualification as supporting the real priority of developing the next generation of industry specialists.
What do these new developments tell us? I believe that IT qualifications are reaching a new level of maturity. While I have selected just a few examples from my recent involvement these illustrate the trends towards higher profile post-experience programmes and industry engagement.
We need to encourage the professional bodies such as BCS, industry employers (suppliers and users), academia and government to work together to give IT the educational framework enjoyed by Accounting and other professions. This should be flexible enough to include the types of innovative masters that are being launched. It will not be easy but I trust IT professionals and managers agree it is worthwhile.
Dr Sharm Manwani is Associate Professor and Program Director of Enterprise Information Management at Henley Business School. IT Enabled Business Change: Successful Management is published by BCS. Email sharm.manwani@henley.com to share your views.
