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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYLance B. Eliot, Feature Editor, Eliot & Associates Dealing with the Information Technology Vortexby Lance B. Eliot Eliot & Associates I was recently invited to give a presentation at the 1994 Society for Information Management (SIM) Annual Conference (held September 19-21, 1994, in Salt Lake City, Utah), and pondered at some length about the message that I would convey to the hundreds of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) who were likely to attend this important annual event. The overall theme for the conference was announced as "Managing Inside The Vortex" and cleverly captures the current conditions facing organizations and CIOs. A swirl of continuous and often upsetting change seems to be the nature of business and information technology in today's environment. Companies are striving to reengineer their business practices and simultaneously reengineer the amount and manner of usage of information technology (I.T.). At the center of the vortex stands the sometimes mighty and sometimes powerless CIO. Contrary to popular opinion, the CIO does not call all of the shots related to the adoption and implementation of information technology in most organizations. Instead, the CIO attempts to influence how and why an organization selects and uses its information technology, and the results are often out-of-line with the preferred views of the CIO. In working closely with CIOs who have annual budgets of $20 million, $50 million, and some with even larger budgets and massive legions of information technology soldiers, I have discovered the sad truth that the degree of discretion in allocating information technology resources is often quite restricted. When you set aside the resources needed to keep the business running, meet the desires of the other top executives, and otherwise handle the normal course of business, the remainder is a paltry amount. Nonetheless, CIOs must eventually find ways to gradually refocus their resources and move their information technology in a direction that meets with the needs of their business today, anticipate the needs of the business for tomorrow, shift as the capabilities of information technology advance, and overall take into account a myriad of factors that influence them and the use of information technology in contemporary society. This whole notion of the CIO as an influencerþand one who is also influencedþstruck me as a viable topic for my 1994 SIM Conference presentation. CIOs need to be consciously aware of the influencing factors that either impact their mode of thinking or that they can impact to provide additional leeway in their desired efforts. Eight Influencing Factors After some reflection on the influencing factors, I prepared a list of critical influencing factors that seem to be the most active in today's vortex, to wit:
In whatever action that a CIO might take, all of the preceding eight factors will come to play. Depending upon the magnitude of the decision or action, some factors may be more critical than others for the particular matter at hand. Ignoring a factor can lead to lack of commitment or ability to complete a desired action. Thus, a CIO must rapidly size up a situation, take into account the various factors, determine how a given factor should or could influence an outcome, and then plan how to generate influence upon the factor if need be. A quick example may help to illustrate the need to consider and balance each of the preceding factors. In a recent consulting engagement, I was working with a CIO who believed that moving toward client/server technology would be worthwhile. Generally, companies wishing to adopt client/server technology have found the path to to be strewn with difficulties. Thus, I explored with the CIO the reasons for moving toward client/ server in his organization, and further, how to carry out the idea if warranted. We walked through each of the eight factors noted above. His boss, the CEO, was not particularly aware of the value or purpose of client/server technology. Some of his colleagues, such as the VP of Sales & Marketing, had expressed a desire to see more distributed systems and less reliance on their more traditional, centralized systems. Within his industry there was a significant movement toward the use of client/server, including industry committees studying the matter, and competitors launching pilot projects. The CIO's hunch that the firm should begin doing client/server projects was actually based on a combination of intuition and actual signals that were being broadcast in his direction. He realized that the signals were there, but had not gone the next step of explicitly identifying them and then articulating a strategy to use them for the desired action. Since the VP of Sales & Marketing was eager to embrace client/server technology, we laid out a plan to involve his group in an initial pilot effort to explore the technology. Simultaneously, we planned a series of contacts between the CEO and information about trends in the industry that highlighted the use of client/server systems. Our planning continued through each of the eight factors, laying out what might be done to gain influence or mitigate influence from each respective factor. In addition, other types of information technology were also considered, both formal and informal, that would assist the organization. To date, our plan has already led to an initial project that is currently being field tested with the sales force. Over time, the use of client/server will undoubtedly widen. Conclusion Any executive that systematically attempts to deal with the vortex of activity around them will benefit from using an influencing factors list similar to the one presented here. During the daily battles of corporate life, it is easy to forget the range of factors that had better be considered for job survival and career success. The list does not have to identify factors never before envisioned (i.e., it does not have to be magical)þinstead, it merely has to highlight the factors that are important to a particular executive and help ensure that their thinking covers all of the appropriate bases. If you would like to share projects addressing information technology with readers, please write to Dr. Eliot, Eliot & Associates, |