Chief Information Officers hate change. They hate it because of the chance things will go wrong. Their hatred of the consequences of change makes it easy for their colleagues in the boardroom to marginalize them.
But it is easy to see why CIOs feel the way they do.
When anyone changes a computer in a large organization, they are not just changing that one server. Every server tends to be related to many others in some way, so there is this web of complexity which must be considered every time a change is done.
Now, because these are systems which have quite likely been in place for years, it is likely that no one will know every detail of every system which may be affected when the change is implemented. So, when the change happens, there is every possibility something unexpected will go wrong.
Even very small changes are risky for a CIO. They’ll try to mitigate their risk that something critical will fail by making changes only when processing loads are low.This will normally be on weekends, when they will have lots of people standing by, just in case anything bad happens.
Obviously, this can be very expensive. All these costs quickly mount up, and add into that the fact that there will likely be multiple changes needed in every single change window available, and you’ll see why change is all so expensive and risky for a typical CIO.
These are all good reasons CIOs avoid change. But by doing so, they leave themselves out of strategic discussions in the boardroom.
Some successful CIOs have decided to address this head on by creating their own innovation teams to find strategic technology investments they can make. The goal in doing this is not about delivering change, but to prove to board level associates that IT is a fit for purpose partner at the table.
Innovation Management is the discipline CIOs need to systematically find new technology investments for board-level discussions. James Gardner’s online innovation book details the 10 things CIOs need to know to get started.