Scaling IT with the business

It appeared like a losing battle for the CIO; he was struggling to keep momentum going with new initiatives as well as running the business as usual. Most function heads had begun raising voices in review meetings; the CIO had been unable to find time to attend the last two management meetings trying to solve one crisis while other fires burnt bright. He was running faster than ever before to stay in the same place but was unable to; despite best of intentions and good past performance, the CIO was facing a credibility crisis now.

It was a traditional company with nondescript existence for a long time with unimpressive growth and undifferentiated products. They hired people below market median who worked with them until they retired; you could find employees with impressively long careers in doing the same thing for decades. They had invested in IT along with everyone and like everyone they had stuck to automation basics. Everything worked but never reached a wow ! Parallel systems continued thereby rendering the entire framework a passive failure.

Then something explicable happened, no one knows what changed but the company found its mojo after a long time; the business started beating market growth and acquisitions added to the excitement. It brought lot of expectations and the demand on IT suddenly multiplied. New opportunities required new skills and way of working for which the CIO and his team were unprepared. They toiled longer and harder in a quest to meet the demand; they did deliver more than they had done earlier but somehow it did not seem enough.

The CIO had hired based on need and the team was happy to find stability which they valued; they were good in a passive way and executed the orders they were handed. They never had the opportunity nor the need to collaborate or take first steps; the company was satisfied with what they had. Over the past year the CIO attempted to change team behavior and found capability improvement had limitations. Training, coaching and mentoring got acknowledgement of lessons and then they would be back to normal as soon as they went back to their workplace.

Pressure on the CIO and IT team increased manifold creating a cycle of underperformance and frustration on both sides. Adverse impact to process and efficiency due to lack of IT solutions began affecting the business. Not seeing any visible change, Human Resources was confidentially tasked to build a parallel team including finding a new CIO ! The news trickled back to within the company after some time leaving the IT team scurrying for survival. Shaken the CIO conferred with the team to explore avenues to bring themselves back into relevance.

Variations of this situation repeats itself in many enterprises where IT teams fail to keep up with changing expectations. As a C-level executive, the CIO is expected to anticipate change and plan for it rather than been told what to do; inability to demonstrate leadership results in change of CIO who pays the price for failing to scale and change with the times. Sometimes the IT team sees forced attrition and collateral casualties which leaves the team either weakened with the exits or strong with infusion of fresh talent.

It is imperative for CIOs and IT teams to anticipate change to stay relevant in the new business; they are expected to be equal partners and work across layers to institutionalize new technology enabled processes. Failing to stay relevant (see Stay Hungry, Stay Relevant) will create situations described above. The problem is a lot more widely prevalent than acknowledged; the real CIOs are able to thrive in this uncertain world, the wannabe CIOs and IT Managers sporting the title give away their lack of maturity and ability.

The CIO rose to the challenge; seeking help from industry peers, he worked with HR to segment the team into groups based on competency and capability. The group low on competency and capability was outplaced with help of IT partners; competent team moved into operations while the capable teams were happy to move into other functions. The last group which had competency and capability scaled into business facing IT roles. Fresh blood inducted into the team strengthened the organization ability to move with the times.

The CIO earned his position onto the Management table where he was welcomed as an equal.