Should IT professionals aspire to become the organisation’s chief technology officer (CTO), or widen their horizons to focus on delivering the transformational capability of ICT as a chief information officer (CIO)?
This dilemma is discussed in Career crossroads – CIO or CTO?: essential reading for all ICT managers – the latest briefing from Socitm Insight, the publishing arm of the local public services IT and digital professionals’ organisation.
For many senior public service IT managers, experience and instincts tell them that their job is to provide 99.95% service availability, and to safeguard diligently the security of the organisation’s information.
However, at a time when austerity demands that public sector organisations maximise value from their information assets, exploit the potential of technology to transform service delivery, enable customer and employee self-service, deliver shared services and facilitate access anywhere, anytime with any device, there is a wider role for top ICT professionals beyond technology management.
Underlying this is the fact that ICT people have a unique set of skills to support transformation and change, says the briefing, since they understand the end-to-end business processes in detail, can deliver complex projects on time and within budget and, most importantly, know what impact change has on people.
Senior colleagues, says the briefing, do not always appreciate that ICT professionals can bring these skills to the table, possibly regarding ICT as a commodity purchase and ICT professionals as technicians. Senior public service managers may also be reluctant to work with ICT colleagues to transform service delivery by exploiting information assets with appropriate technology.
Career crossroads – CIO or CTO? aims to help ICT professionals recognise these issues and to persuade them that there is a choice to be made between technology and transformation. It points out that while the ICT function is tending nowadays to report into a lower point in public service management hierarchies, there are many examples where the head of ICT has actually moved into positions of greater influence in the organisation by taking on additional responsibilities, particularly around customer service, access and management.
The briefing says that those who have acquired these sort of additional responsibilities have overcome a fear of moving on from technology and played an active part in bringing about the change, making a contribution to the organisation at a corporate level rather than just being content to manage their own function.
IMKS Co-ordinator Chris Head, who authored the briefing says: ‘The CIO role is not for everyone, and is a significant challenge. Some ICT professionals will wish to remain CTOs, but, given the relentless march of cloud computing and the commoditisation of user devices that spell the end of the large internal ICT estate, Socitm as the relevant professional society would be failing in its duty of care to its members if it did not alert them to the dangers of so doing. This briefing therefore provides guidance on how to create opportunities for change and exploit professional skills that are much needed but remain scarce ’.
