Become a Transformational CIO
Collaborate with the business to lead transformation and leave behind a legacy of growth.
- Business transformations are happening, but CIOs are often involved only when it comes time to implement change. This makes it difficult for the CIO to be perceived as an organizational leader.
- CIOs find it difficult to juggle operational activities, strategic initiatives, and involvement in business transformation.
- CIOs don’t always have the IT organization structured and mobilized in a manner that facilitates the identification of transformation opportunities, and the planning for and the implementation of organization-wide change.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Don’t take an ad hoc approach to transformation.
- You’re not in it alone.
- Your legacy matters
Impact and Result
- Elevate your stature as a business leader.
- Empower the IT organization to act with a business mind first, and technology second.
- Create a high-powered IT organization that is focused on driving lasting change, improving client experiences, and encouraging collaboration across the entire enterprise.
- Generate opportunities for organizational growth, as manifested through revenue growth, profit growth, new market entry, new product development, etc.
Become a Transformational CIO
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our Executive Brief to find out why you should undergo an evolution in your role as a business leader, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.
1. Are you ready to lead transformation?
Determine whether you are ready to focus your attention on evolving your role.
2. Build business partnerships
Create a plan to establish key business partnerships and position IT as a co-leader of transformation.
3. Develop the capability to transform
Mobilize the IT organization and prepare for the new mandate.
4. Shift IT’s focus to the customer
Align IT with the business through a direct, concentrated focus on the customer.
5. Adopt a transformational approach to leadership
Determine the key behaviors necessary for transformation success and delegate effectively to make room for new responsibilities.
6. Sustain the transformational capability
Track the key success metrics that will help you manage transformation effectively.
Onsite Workshop: Become a Transformational CIO
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Determine Readiness to Become a Transformational CIO
The Purpose
- Understand stakeholder and executive perception of the CIO’s performance and leadership.
- Determine whether the CIO is ready to lead transformation.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Decision to evolve role or address areas of improvement as a pre-requisite to becoming a transformational CIO.
Activities
Outputs
Select data collection techniques.
Conduct diagnostic programs.
- Select stakeholder and executive perception of the CIO
Review results and define readiness.
- Decision as to whether to proceed with the role evolution
Module 2: Build Business Partnerships
The Purpose
- Identify potential business partners and create a plan to establish key partnerships.
Key Benefits Achieved
- An actionable set of initiatives that will help the CIO create valuable partnerships with internal or external business stakeholders.
Activities
Outputs
Identify potential business partners.
Evaluate and prioritize list of potential partners.
Create a plan to establish the target partnerships.
- Partnership strategy
Module 3: Establish IT’s Ability to Transform
The Purpose
- Make the case and plan for the development of key capabilities that will enable the IT organization to handle transformation.
Key Benefits Achieved
- A maturity assessment of critical capabilities.
- A plan to address maturity gaps in preparation for a transformational mandate.
Activities
Outputs
Define transformation as a capability.
Assess the current and target transformation capability maturity.
- Transformation capability assessment
Develop a roadmap to address gaps.
- Roadmap to develop the transformation capability
Module 4: Shift IT’s Focus to the Customer
The Purpose
- Gain an understanding of the
end customer of the organization.
Key Benefits Achieved
- A change in IT mindset away from a focus on operational activities or internal customers to external customers.
- A clear understanding of how the organization creates and delivers value to customers.
- Opportunities for business transformation.
Activities
Outputs
Analyze value streams that impact the customer.
- Value stream maps
Map business capabilities to value streams.
- Business capability map
Module 5: Establish Transformation Leadership and Sustain the Capability
The Purpose
- Establish a formal process for empowering employees and developing new leaders.
- Create a culture of continuous improvement and a long-term focus.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Increased ability to sustain momentum that is inherent to business transformations.
- Better strategic workforce planning and a clearer career path for individuals in IT.
- A system to measure IT’s contribution to business transformation.
Activities
Outputs
Set the structure for the office of the CIO.
- OCIO structure document
Assess current leadership skills and needs.
Spread a culture of self-discovery.
Maintain the transformation capability.
- Transformational leadership dashboard
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Try Our Guided Implementations
Get the help you need in this 6-phase advisory process. You'll receive 11 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation #1 - Are you ready to lead transformation?
- Call #1 - Identify data collection techniques.
- Call #2 - Validate your decision to proceed.
Guided Implementation #2 - Build business partnerships
- Call #1 - Identify and prioritize potential partners.
- Call #2 - Create a plan to establish partnerships.
Guided Implementation #3 - Develop the capability to transform
- Call #1 - Define and assess capabilities.
- Call #2 - Address maturity gaps.
Guided Implementation #4 - Shift IT’s focus to the customer
- Call #1 - Discuss the ways in which your organization creates value for customers.
- Call #2 - Outline the different value streams and select one to focus on.
Guided Implementation #5 - Adopt a transformational approach to leadership
- Call #1 - Review how the IT department is progressing in terms of skill discovery.
- Call #2 - Discuss best practices to creating/modeling the office of the CIO function.
Guided Implementation #6 - Sustain the transformational capability
- Call #1 - Discuss the ways your organization is currently tracking, or could be tracking, the key transformation metrics.
Contributors
- Warren Buck, Manager of Business Architecture & PMO, Viterra
- Daniel Bursuc, Senior Manager, Rogers Communications
- Alex Coleman, CIO, Saskatchewan Worker’s Compensation Board
- Don Conly, Director of IT, Viterra
- Eric Dirst, President, DeVry Online Services
- Ken Zima, Director of IT, Aquarion Water Company
- Kin Lee-Yow, VP of IT, CAA South Central Ontario
- Rose Morley, Manager of Enterprise Technology Services ,Viterra
- Ken Piddington, CIO and Executive Advisor, MRE Consulting
- Lou Saviano, VP of Global Information Technology Services, Skillsoft
- Sarah Trimble-Oliver, CIO, Cincinnati Public Schools