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March 16, 2008
Innovation by CIOs: the Same Old Same Old
Proposed: Business is built on IT, and CIOs know more about what IT could offer to innovation, so they should drive the innovation.
On the one hand, it looks good on paper. It's not new, but it seems to make sense.
On the other hand... wait, where IS the other hand?
The CIO Insight Discussion hosted some talk from industry analysts Forrester and kicked off followup commentary.
Reader Jon McAdams had left an earlier comment there that saved the rest of us some writing... So I'll segue from some of what he was pointing at.
CIO's who don't feel very "chiefly" should rightfully question whether their compensation is in line with how they'll actually be measured. But in the world of performance measurement, speaking truth to power is personally relatively expensive. How do you afford it? There's the dilemma.
Proposed: Any CIO who wants to use the word "Innovation" more than once a business quarter should be prepared to provide the definition of what innovation is, by distinguishing its flavors from each other: the planned, the authorized, and the actual. If the CIO is a decision maker in all three dimensions, then there is, fortunately, no dilemma; there's just execution.
But in execution, there are two tracks to follow: priority, and production. If the CIO is not being paid to decide and validate their alignment with each other, then again there is, unfortunately, no dilemma. There's just the matter of whether other people around the CIO want to know what's real or not before they take the actions they actually take.
Let's face it, giving action orders to the "head of IT" doesn't require having a CIO or being realistic. Meanwhile, getting orders can be done with one hand tied behind your back. But being held responsible for the consequences of someone else's higher up decisions is clearly not a prescription for being the chief.
Posted by Malcolm Ryder at March 16, 2008 10:59 AM
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