The most common mistakes made by CIOs

By Ahmad Al Mulla

I have been in the I.T. field for over 24 years of which over 15 years in various managerial positions. During this period I have made my share of mistakes. Though I cannot recall how many, I came to realise many of them in retrospect. It was only when I started sharing them with my fellow CIOs, I came to the realisation that I wasn’t the only one – many of them have made similar mistakes. I thought of sharing the most common mistakes that CIOs make, in my view. I have a list of over 100 but I will only list the top 5 that can be easily addressed. These are in no particular order of preference or priority.

• Celebrating success too early: It is not unusual that celebrations take place on the day of the “go-live” of a project or immediately after. While this might make sense logically (as finally at this point the output is seen and visible), practically, it is the worst time to celebrate. The reason being this is the starting point of change management from the users’ point of view and they from this point onwards need to undergo a period of anxiety and discomfort till the learning takes place and the new system stabilizes. It is amazing how CIOs make such mistakes while emphasizing the importance of change management at the same time.
  
• Not speaking the right language: I have seen CIOs fluctuating between two extremes when it comes to the language they use. First is the use of technical jargon that scares the business people and the other is not providing any technical details at all. Striking the right balance is quite important and unfortunately, most CIOs do not seem to find this balance.
  
• Missing the big picture: In making decisions, many CIOs seem to miss the big picture (taking business into consideration). This eventually results in not being able to present the justifications for investments in a convincing business context. In other words, decisions must be ably supported with business reasoning rather than limiting them to technical enhancements or features. CIOs must consider the business with the macro level in mind at all times. It can be argued that a CIO's business skills are more important than his or her technical skills.
  
• Undermining the technical knowledge of business people: While it is true that the IT field is fast evolving and very difficult to keep abreast of, this does not mean that the business people cannot keep up with the latest developments. As a matter of fact, for this same reason, you might find it surprising to see that many business employees know a lot more about I.T. than those within the I.T. field itself.
  
• Forgetting their own department: Many CIOs do not have metrics and KPIs for their own I.T. departments linked to the business. Even those who have them seem to measure means rather than ends. This is really astounding and I have seen it in almost all companies.

It is said that "Experience comes from what we have done. Wisdom comes from what we have done badly." As Steve Goodier put it, wisdom is what the school of life gives us with every poor report card. Wisdom is hard won, and it is often birthed in the ashes of failure.

I really don't worry about the things I've done badly. If I pay attention to what went wrong and why, then even my most spectacular failures gave something priceless back – they taught valuable lessons. Sometimes wisdom can't be gotten any other way.

Source: LinkedIn