CIO Survival Guide


Book Description

CIO Survival Guide is a leadership manual for the emerging role of the Chief Information Officer. This book supports and guides CIOs in acquiring or enhancing their technical skills and leadership competencies to be a full and respected member of the Executive Team. It includes exposition and practice of the skills and competencies required to be a successful CIO.




CIO Best Practices


Book Description

CIO BEST PRACTICES Enabling Strategic Value with Information Technology SECOND EDITION For anyone who wants to achieve better returns on their IT investments, CIO Best Practices, Second Edition presents the leadership skills and competencies required of a CIO addressing comprehensive enterprise strategic frameworks to fully leverage IT resources. Filled with real-world examples of CIO success stories, the Second Edition explores: CIO leadership responsibilities and opportunities The business impacts of both business and social networking, as well as ways the CIO can leverage the new reality of human connectivity on the Internet The increasingly inextricable relationships between customers, employees, and their use of personal information technologies Emerging cultural expectations and standards outside the workplace Current CRM best practices in terms of the relationship between customer preferences and shareholder wealth Enterprise energy utilization and sustainability practices otherwise known as Green IT with all the best practices collected here, in one place Best practices for one of the Internet's newest and most revolutionary technologies: cloud computing and ways it is shaping the new economics of business




Straight to the Top


Book Description

You have what it takes to be a CIO. Do you have a strategy for getting there? Now you do. "Gregory Smith has written the definitive work on how to achieve leadership success in IT. This well-written and carefully researched book is a must-read for any IT professional with aspirations toward the top IT spot. Years from now, seasoned IT leaders will be crediting Smith's book with playing a role in their success." —Martha Heller, Managing Director, IT Leadership Practice, Z Resource Group, and cofounder, CIO Executive Council "Wow! Put all the tips, advice, and strategies in this book to use now. The road to the top is rarely straight—follow Gregory's advice and the path will reveal itself to you!" —John R. Sullivan, CIO, AARP "While most professions have a distinct road map to the top, there is no standard career path to becoming a CIO. Smith addresses this unique challenge and provides aspiring CIOs with encouragement, advice, and essential skills based on years of his own and other CIOs' cumulative experience -- an important effort for the profession that Smith's fellow members in the CIO Executive Council embrace and applaud." —Mark Hall, General Manager of the CIO Executive Council "Teaching students what a CIO really does has been tough. We've had to choose between anecdotal treatments based on trade press articles and integrated academic frameworks that offer little in the way of lived experiences. Greg's book fixes that. By organizing interviews with leading technology executives, trade press reports, and his own experiences as a CIO, he provides an organized and comprehensive view of the job and its important role in modern organizations." —Fred Collopy, PHD, Professor and Chair of Information Systems and Professor of Cognitive Science, Case Western Reserve University




The Strategic CIO


Book Description

Recognized as One of the Best Business Books for 2014 by CIO Magazine Based on interviews with more than 150 CIOs, IT/business executives, and academic thought leaders, The Strategic CIO: Changing the Dynamics of the Business Enterprise provides insight, success stories, and a step-by-step methodology to transform your IT organization into a strategic asset that drives customer value, increases revenues, and enhances shareholder wealth. The book details how strategic CIOs from FedEx, Procter & Gamble, McKesson, and other leading companies transformed their organizations. It illustrates the methods these CIOS used to become strategic partners that collaborate effectively within their organizations to leverage information and technology for a competitive advantage. The text will help you assess the key competencies and skills required by IT personnel to partner with your business teams to create new and enhanced products and services that create customer value, increase margin, and enhance shareholder wealth. The book includes powerful methodologies, time-saving templates, proven best practices, and helpful assessments. It also details a four-phase methodology, along with the associated activities and tools, to help your IT organization successfully transform into a strategic IT organization. Gain insight into the four domain competencies and twelve associated skills required to build effective strategic IT organizations. Build your roadmap to success using the transformation methodology described in the text and you will be on your way to making your organization a strategic IT organization. Read Philip Weinzimer’s recent article that appeared on CIO.com.




The CIO Playbook


Book Description

As our economy shifts from recession to recovery, our current economic climate is ripe for transformation. CIOs are in a unique position to leverage technology in order to drive innovation and boost business growth. The CIO Playbook is the handy desk reference for CIOs, CEOs, CFOs, and up and coming leaders, revealing a dynamic seven-step framework (Partner – Organize – Innovate – Deliver – Support – Protect – Grow) that will guide you in making essential changes to your organization. The proven strategies, tools, and techniques in The CIO Playbook make it the ultimate "how-to" resource for creating a high-performance IT organization that delivers value-added products and services to employees, customers, and shareholders. Author Nicholas Colisto provides solutions to the issues that concern business leaders and IT practitioners, including: How to truly partner with business peers Delivering high-quality products and services that are embraced by your user community How to ensure your team is focused on the right innovations Measuring performance and running your department like a business Ways to attract, motivate, and retain a talented team working toward a common vision Managing risks to operate effectively and protect corporate reputation Featuring online templates for each of the seven steps described in the book, The CIO Playbook can help you transform your IT department from a mere order taker to a high-performance organization that delivers extraordinary business outcomes, despite this era of turbulent economic challenges.




Where's the CIO?


Book Description




The Chief Information Officer's Body of Knowledge


Book Description

Down to earth, real answers on how to manage technology—from renowned IT leaders Filled with over thirty contributions from practitioners who handle both the day-to-day and longer term challenges that Information Technology (IT) departments and their parent businesses face, this hands-on, practical IT desk reference is written in lay terms for business people and IT personnel alike. Without jargon and lofty theories, this resource will help you assist your organization in addressing project risks in a global and interconnected world. Provides guidance on how business people and IT can work together to maximize business value Insights from more than thirty leading IT experts Commonsense, rational solutions for issues such as managing outsourcing relationships and operating IT as a business Offering solutions for many of the problems CIOs face, this unique book addresses the Chief Information Officer's role in managing and running IT as a business, so the IT department may become a full strategic partner in the organization's crucial decisions.




Be the Business


Book Description

Remember the '70s? Way back then, IT was a mainframe that sat in some room and only a few people had a key. Flash forward a decade, and IT was a limited set of systems irrelevant to the vast majority of employees and customers. But today, all of the sudden, technology belongs to everyone. Because of the suddenness of this revolution in technology adoption, most IT organizations have not had enough time to evolve into a "comfortable integration" with the rest of the company. This lack of comfortable integration has led to confusion over who is truly accountable for the return on technology investments, how much influence IT leaders should have over a company's business strategy, and whether CEOs need to hire Chief Digital Officers onto their senior leadership teams. Through interviews with dozens of CIOs, Heller has created a snapshot of what CIOs are doing to lead IT in a climate where technology belongs to everyone. She addresses how CIOs are changing their operating models, their approaches to talent development, and their assessment of the new IT provider marketplace. Most importantly, Heller defines the top ten skills and behaviors that CIOs will need to develop if they are going to be successful in an ever changing landscape. As a master storyteller, Heller incorporates philosophy, humor, and pragmatic advice into a book that both informs and entertains.




Taking the Reins as CIO


Book Description

An executive’s transition into any leadership role can be a challenge. Such transitions do not always go smoothly, and the negative consequences can be significant. This is particularly so for Chief Information Officers (CIOs), as the role has evolved significantly over the years yet remains deeply ambiguous. This is despite information and technology moving from the periphery of an organization to a fundamental driver of innovation and competitive advantage. This book is to help the newly appointed CIO “take charge”: the process of learning and taking action that the newly appointed CIO goes through until s/he has mastered the new assignment in sufficient depth to be effective in the role. This book provides keen insights into the challenges faced by today's CIOs while transitioning into a new role and enlightens readers on how to navigate the organizational environment in order to implement necessary changes. With plenty of practical tools and insights it will help you to: • Decide how best to approach the job • Prioritize the first areas of the business you should attend to • Draw up your goals for the first few weeks and months into the role • Find out if there are there any decisions that you can postpone making Based on over 200 interviews with CIOs, CxOs, and recruiters, this book offers readers guidance on how to take on the role of a business executive with special responsibility for information and technology, with ten key prescriptions to maximize success.




The CIO Edge


Book Description

Great CIOs consistently exceed key stakeholders' expectations and maximize the business value delivered through their company's technology. What's their secret? Sure, IT professionals need technological smarts, plus an understanding of their company's goals and the competitive landscape. But the best of them possess a far more potent ability: they forge good working relationships with everyone involved in an IT-enabled project, whether it's introducing new hardware or implementing a major business transformation. In The CIO Edge, the authors draw on Korn/Ferry International's extensive empirical data on leadership competencies as well as Gartner's research on IT trends and the CIO role. They prove that, for IT leaders, mastering seven essential skills yields big results. This new book lays out the people-to-people leadership competencies that the highest-performing CIOs have in common—including the ability to inspire others, connect with a diverse array of stakeholders, value others' ideas, and manifest caring in their relationships. The authors then explain how to cultivate each defining competency. Learn these skills, and you'll get more work done through others' enabling you to successfully execute more IT projects, generate better results for your company, and concentrate your efforts where they'll exert the most impact. The payoff? As the authors show, you'll work smarter, not harder—and get promoted far faster than your peers.