Analyst Corner - How CIOs Drive Change Using Visibility Pressure - Analyst Corner - CIO

Analyst Corner - How CIOs Drive Change Using Visibility Pressure - Analyst Corner - CIO: "CIOs Should Integrate Visibility into Everyday IT Operations

Visibility into IT activities won’t work as a one-time event. Instead, as CIO, you must integrate the use of visibility processes and pressure into all of IT operations. You must:
• Gather the information. You can’t make something visible that doesn’t exist. Use improved relationships with internal customers to motivate the tracking of requests and prioritization through a common process, capturing the information in a consistent format through common tools. The benefit is realized by formally representing to customers what they want and consistently demonstrating what IT is doing to meet those needs. This may be the most difficult part: the cultural change required to turn a hard-working but data-free development organization into a data-generating operation. So treat it like a business change, not a command-and-control decision.
• Publish on a regular basis. You don’t want to appear to hold a grudge. IT organizations are busy, so it is easy not to publish information except when it’s needed—for example, when trying to get a resistant business unit to join a cross-unit investment in a common inventory management system. But if the CIO brings data to bear only to support arguments, then the business execs may see visibility as a form of attack. Periodic publishing of the information on a monthly or quarterly basis means that it’s always available and only referred to in the heat of a debate.
• Warn execs when compromising data is coming. You don’t want to be their enemy. No one likes to be caught off guard looking bad, especially if the surprise could have been avoided. Make certain that the business execs are"