Leading aspect of the CIO’s role

If CIOs have an important role in aligning IT into business, they must understand the business. With that understanding, they can create a vision and encourage their firm apply IT to business.

Understanding the Business
Nowadays, understanding the business operation’s environment is important because the relationship with other firms affect the business competes. There are seven approaches for CIO to understand the business:

1. Encourage project teams to study the marketplace
2. Concentrate on lines of business
3. Sponsor weekly briefing
4. Attend industry meetings with line executives
5. Read industry publications
6. Hold informal listening sessions
7. Partner with a line executive

Creating a Vision of the Future and selling it
What is a vision? A vision is a statement of how someone wants future to be or believe it to be. It is used to set direction of an organization. When has a vision, then CIO can formulated a strategy on how to bring the vision into being.

Why develop a vision? A vision of desirable future can provide stability when it sets direction for an organization. In today’s environment, events are likely to appear random. Thus, direction setting and short-term explorations within that space are most appropriate.

Encouraging champions of IT projects: A champion is someone with a vision who gets it implemented by obtaining the funding, pushing the project over difficulties, putting his or her reputation on the line, and taking on the risk of project. CIO’s need champions to encourage IT experimentation, especially by people from the operating units. The champions need three things from IS management: information, resource, and support.