The Emerging Role of the Chief Information Officer
Superstar or Supporting Act?
Cranfield School of Management - April 2007
Professor Chris
Edwards
Rob Lambert
So what are the options
for the successful CIO: to
become the organisation’s
Chief Transformation
office, a ‘superstar’ role
with a Board position and
a member of the inner
sanctum; or to become a
‘supporting act’ in
managing a collection of
outsourcers working for
the organisation’s new
Chief Transformation
Officer?
Indications are that the rate of
organisational change / transformation
is increasing. In the public sector the
emphasis placed on integration and
efficiency has significantly risen (fuelled
by Gershon and Lyons) and further reenforced by the ODPM’s 10-year vision,
'The Future of Local Government’.
Improved service delivery, better
dialogue with citizens and communities,
strong political and managerial
leadership and joined-up services are
just some of the challenges currently
facing the public sector. Each of these
demands that such organisations must
have the ability to transform. The
private sector is not excluded from this
revolution; one multi-national
organisation reports 1,500 active
change initiatives at one particular point
in time. No doubt some of these are
minor and involve few individuals,
however many are significant in scale
and complexity. It is no wonder many
organisations report change overload!
Information Technology (IT) is one of
the primary components of such
transformations in many organisations;
unfortunately the literature abounds with
statistics of IT failure. Often such failure
is not of a technical nature but an
organisational ‘failure’ to
advantageously harness the new
facilities provided by the software. It is
becoming clear that IT as a vehicle of
transformation is discredited in some
organisations.
Often learning between initiatives is
limited. In some organisations each
transformation initiative seems to be
undertaken to standards set by the
leader of that particular initiative. To
pursue a nautical analogy each voyage
(initiative) is undertaken rather like
Columbus’s first expedition to the
Americas, which must have been a
planning and operational nightmare.
Organisations require change to be
managed more like a P&O cruise
docking at Southampton: the required
replenishments are radioed ahead; the
waste is waiting to be taken off; all the
consumables are ready to be loaded.
Ten hours later the vessel is on its way
to the next port, fully prepared to delight
its new customers. The precise
planning has evolved over many years
and clearly has a direct effect upon
P&O‘s bottom line; each day that
passengers are cruising generates
income. Maybe this analogy is
exaggerated, but in some organisations
each transformation initiative is like an
adventure; they do not seem to be
learning from each experience to
ensure the next is more effective and
efficient.
The US has seen the growth of an
infrastructure to support such change,
referred to by Kaplan and Norton
amongst others, as the creation of the
Strategy Office supported by Strategy
Maps. These, and all the other
elements of creating tomorrow’s
organisation, increasingly fall under the
control of a single individual sometimes
called the Chief Transformation Officer
(CTrO).
The domain of ‘change and
transformation management’ has been
thoroughly researched by academics
over the years. Numerous
‘methodologies’ have been proposed to
achieve successful transformation. In
essence, common themes recur and
these are shown in Figure 1. The first
four elements are centered around
developing an agreed change portfolio.
The literature reinforces the criticality of
the leadership team communally
committing to a prioritised portfolio. The
remaining six elements are involved
with the detailed planning, delivery and
review of the change initiatives. Recent
research undertaken at Cranfield
suggests that these six elements are
necessary but they are insufficient, in
themselves, to deliver the critical
benefits. Realisation of these benefits
is more closely associated with the
formulation of an agreed change
portfolio.
The Emerging Role of the Chief Information Officer
Superstar or Supporting Act?
The research also indicates that
organisations are more mature in
programme execution but less so in
portfolio formulation.
Figure 1: Generic elements of successful transformation
Portfolio formulation
1 Engender and reinforce an organisational culture of continuous change
Exactly who in an organisation aligns,
prioritises and coordinates the
portfolio of business change
initiatives? Who is responsible for
creating organisational readiness for
change? Who ensures that adequate
business change resources are
allocated to each initiative? Who
mobilises the various groups that need
to be involved in operationalising the
change (IT, HR, etc)? Who tests and
signs off the change as suitable in
terms of efficiency and compliance?
Some of these tasks are frequently
allocated to a Programme Office but
such a group often exists to provide
administrative and support services
only; not a truly managerial capability,
with real responsibility and authority.
The above questions relate to
responsibility for the creation of the
organisation’s tomorrow and, as such,
it could be said to be the CEO’s
responsibility. But then everything is
the CEO’s responsibility and he/she
only has 16 working hours in each
day! In summary, it is less clear who
coordinates and operationalises the
creation of tomorrow’s business than it
is to understand who delivers today’s
business.
The UK has seen a distinct rise in the
number of advertisements for
individuals with ‘Transformation’ and
‘Change’ in the job title, particularly in
the public sector. Such a role is
central to an organisation as it
exclusively focuses upon generating
tomorrow’s success. Logic suggests,
and the job advertisements confirm,
that there is a need for such an
individual but what is their
background; what are their core
competencies? Would an effective
Chief Information Officer be well
positioned to fulfill such a
transformation role? A brief
consideration of the competencies
required for the task of CTrO
compared to those required for a
successful CIO would suggest a
significant similarity. For example,
coordination of a variety of initiatives is
central to both, as is the need to
understand and act in a ‘political’
manner. Also the traditional IT ‘V’
2 Understand the drivers and content of each change initiative at an early stage in
the lifecycle
3 Align and filter initiatives to the strategic goals thus creating the change portfolio
4 Harmonise the strategic leaders team to support the change portfolio
Programme execution
1 Develop the detailed business case and obtain approval / refusal for each initiative
2 Establish accountability and governance for each change initiative
3 Execute each change initiative and realise the intended business benefits
4 Manage the ongoing initiative portfolio, conflict, resources and inter-dependencies
5 Co-ordinate the elements of the change capability
6 Review, learn and improve the change capability
diagram, beginning with a need to
involve and understand the success
criteria and terminating with a
customer ‘sign off’, could be applied to
broader change initiatives, albeit at a
different level. Further, given the
continuing drive towards IT
outsourcing, many CIO’s are already
focusing upon ‘demand management’.
A recent presentation at Cranfield by
Darin Brumby of First Group would
suggest that some CIO’s are already
undertaking this transformation role in
content if not in title. If this is
occurring it may well satisfy an
aspiration cited by some CIO’s to be a
permanent member of the Board
rather than the more usual
arrangement of being summoned as
required. However some might ask
why an organisation would want to
promote an individual to a wider, but
similar, role when the ‘IT products’
they presently deliver are the subject
of such criticism and often reported
failure. Perhaps one reason for this
current failure is that the existing role
is restricted to the information aspects
of change; maybe this wider remit will
increase the success rate for securing
benefits from IT change.
So what are the options for the
successful CIO: to become the
organisation’s CTrO, a ‘superstar’ role
with a Board position and a member of
the inner sanctum; or to become a
‘supporting act’ in managing a
collection of outsourcers working for
the organisation’s new Chief
Transformation Officer? Clearly some
of today’s CIO’s would choose the
former and some may be required to
become the latter. These
speculations are embryonic, but early
indications suggest such scenarios
are becoming reality in some
organisations.
Our purpose in writing this article is to
stimulate the debate so that current
and aspiring CIO’s can plan their long
term development. The issues
discussed here are to be explored in
more detail at a forthcoming
conference at Cranfield.
Professor Chris Edwards
c.edwards@cranfield.ac.uk
Rob Lambert
r.lambert@cranfield.ac.uk
© Cranfield School of Management