ITXtreme with Paul Ryan » CIOs Should Be Technologists

April 07, 2006 | Comments: (0)

CIOs Should Be Technologists

TAGS: Things That Piss Me Off

How many times have you heard this:

"I read that book -- technology is not strategic to corporations anymore. We should just spend less".

and

"CIO should be good generalists -- and not technologists."

The book that people refer to is the really the glorified article (now book) by Nicholas Carr entitled "IT Doesn't Matter". Like a lot of books that people quote, most people haven't read it, but purport to understand (and proclaim) the central thesis.

The point that Carr makes (albeit in circuitous way) is that technology, applied haphazardly (and not strategically) is a waste of time and money. Technology for technology's sake is the modus operandi of most CIOs, and as a result, there is little correlation to IT spending and competitive advantage of a business.

This should not be too earth-shattering for most people. Any technology (and by technology, I mean the more broad term that means any tools and techniques to accomplish a goal) not properly applied to a problem is a waste of time.

And the claim that technology-focused CIOs fall into the trap of technology for technology's sake has some validity. But's let's examine the opposite -- CIOs that are not really technologists. What does this look like?

You might say that the CIO would have more empathy for the business as a whole (at least if they are not from a finance/accounting background) -- marketing, product, or any customer facing background has a better chance of aligning the CIO with the end customer. This also has some validity. But's let's examine the potential downside -- a CIO making potentially strategic technology decisions (yes -- some IT decisions are strategic) with little sense of the underlying approach validity). This is scary. I realize it's not much worse than a CIO who's last real technology encounter was Cobol, but I still can't believe that the actual IT decisions are made well, and in an informed state.

When I look at a buiness problem, it really helps to understand the underlying technologies that support the business processes, the potential technologies that could be used, and how they should be pieced together. Thats what I thought a CIO did.

Posted by Paul T. Ryan on April 7, 2006 09:24 AM

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