Product Description

The collected wisdom of Silicon Valley's leading IT experts that concisely addresses the most pressing issues facing IT professionals today.

Focuses on the business drivers that impact the IT function!
Explains the top ten measurements that are critical to IT success!
Shows how to set priorities when infrastructure costs are rising and resources are limited!

This is the practical survival guide for every CIO and IT manager who is fighting the battle to do more with less. Covers everything from budgeting and measuring, to planning, sourcing, and architecture. Each chapter is introduced with a real-life story that shows how the common themes that have emerged from each author's unique experiences are related. The critical skills that every IT manager needs to master are covered in detail with real-life insights and practical examples. Whether your IT organization is wrestling with outsourcing maintenance issues, or critical infrastructure problems, the solutions you need can be found in this book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #163749 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

From the Back Cover

What it takes to be a truly great CIO... from the IT leaders who know best

What does it take to get to the top in IT today, stay there, and thrive? How do you realign IT to maximize business value, and become a full strategic partner in the organization's most crucial decisions? CIO Wisdom brings together answers from 20 of the world's most successful senior IT executives. Based on their extraordinary private discussions over the past five years, it covers every facet of IT leadership: planning, budgeting, sourcing, architecture, strategy, and much more. If you're an IT leader-or you intend to become one-it's the most important book you'll read this year.

• What really works right now
• Taking charge: Creating a 90-day tactical plan-and an intelligent long-term strategy
• Refocusing IT on your company's core business drivers
• Leading IT in today's rapidly evolving "extended enterprise"
• Deciding what to outsource-and managing your outsourcing relationships
• Implementing the ten metrics most critical to IT success
• Setting priorities when infrastructure costs are rising and resources are declining
• Evolving the leadership style that works best for you-and your organization
• Coping with the incredible personal pressures of IT leadership
• Addressing the unique challenges that face women in IT's upper echelons

The authors' profits from this book will support a scholarship program for underprivileged students planning IT careers

About the Author

DEAN LANE is Senior Director of Information Technology at Symantec Corporation. Prior to joining Symantec, he served as a CIO four times at companies such as Plantronics, Masters Institute, and Allied Signal.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Foreword by Dean Lane

The research for this book began more than 30 years ago and is based on the experience, learning and real-world practices of more than 18 people who currently are, or have been, in the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO). The combined knowledge, expertise and skills have been leveraged on individual chapters as well as groups of chapters to ensure practical information that can be easily understood.

The concept or idea behind this written work began about a year ago, when I had cause to reflect on all of my experiences as a CIO (both good and bad). What were my successes, failures, frustrations and accomplishments? One of my revelations was that we (the IT industry) had not communicated clearly enough what it is that we do. Quite to the contrary, many lower level IT professionals cause greater frustration by promoting the thought that they are magicians who work on black boxes.

To help bridge the chasm, I decided that a book, of CIOs, by CIOs and for CIOs was indicated. I first floated the concept past War Department 470—the supreme authority in all the land ...my wife. She normally tells me to keep my day job and get back to work, but this time she thought it was a capital idea.

I first presented my idea to several long time friends who also happen to be CIOs. I was cautiously optimistic that they would like what was then the young concept of a “CIO book”, but I did not expect the enthusiastic response that I received from my colleagues. The reception to the idea was overwhelming. In a matter of days, I had 15 stakeholders in this book. The collective brain always being better than a single unit, caused us to add and delete more topics/chapters. We also modified the definitions of some chapters and added, deleted and combined topics. Everyone signed up to write a chapter, and teams formed around certain topics that required greater attention.

It had only been a matter of weeks and this quite knowledgeable group of people had taken over the book. I was relegated to the role of providing leadership and, of course, writing my own chapter. I knew this to be an honorary position ...you try to lead a group of 15+ CIOs and push them in a direction. First there was the discovery phase that each author went through to thoroughly understand their topic and outline what would be included, and what would not.

The true leadership came from the sub-groups, like the Technical Architecture team who spent numerous hours together and with others to ensure a pure message. The collaborative effort was also demonstrated by those who wrote individual chapters like “Types of CIOs”, combining and ripping them apart before producing their final product. Importantly, where there was strengthening required, the smaller groups would combine chapters, as in Planning and Setting Priorities.

Everyone completed their assignments to their committed dates. We only had one chapter actually fall off the map, due to a physical illness. The topic being too important to ignore, saw one author writing a solid six pages and working with other authors to incorporate it into the book.

The story surrounding the book gets much more interesting. None of the authors were on a quest have their name(s) attached to the actual chapter that they wrote. This is because of the collaborative efforts associated with this book. Three people have served as “lead authors” reviewing and providing feedback on individual chapters. Many jumped in to help another author who got busy at work and might have missed a deadline. Still others have rewritten sections and incorporated them into other chapters.

To give you the essence of these authors, is to tell the story of how we decided what to do with the proceeds from the book. I was sitting next to one of the authors at our regularly scheduled monthly meetings. He suggested that we create a scholarship fund for disadvantaged students who wanted to pursue a career in Information Technology. This was, perhaps, the most satisfying part of my experience with this book since every author, without exception, was quick to endorse this idea... without question. 100% of the proceeds that any author receives will be donated to the scholarship fund that we have established.

This book has been a collaborative effort right from the beginning, when I sat down with a CIO to review a list of the top 20 topics/chapters, up to and including this forward... that I asked a different CIO to rewrite. Have no doubt that all members of the team, beginning with modifying the list of chapters, have had input the entire way, up to and including the Book Title and how the author's name would appear. CIOs more than any other executive cannot perform his/her job without being collaborative. This book was the epitome of a collaborative effort. The strength of this book is due to the ego-less collaboration of these CIOs, my colleagues, ...most importantly, my friends.

Customer Reviews

Superb compilation of knowledge & experience
The seventeen articles in this compendium represents contemporary and topical subjects, each written by a seasoned CIO. I was as impressed with the selection of articles as I was with the content because each topic is foremost on the minds of CIOs and senior IT managers today.

Among the articles I especially like are:

- The First 90 Days, by Mark Egan, which contains actionable plans that will get the new CIO (or other senior IT executive) quickly moving in the right direction.

- IT Organization, by Guy de Meester, in particular the challenges of centralization vs. decentraliztion, and organizational models in general. If this area is your focus I highly recommend additional reading: "Decentralization: Fantasies, Failings, and Fundamentals" (ISBN 0964163535) and "RoadMap: How to understand, diagnose, and fix your organization" (ISBN 0964163527), both of which go into great detail and provide an exceptionally effective approach.

- Governance, by Danny Maco, which is conspicuously missing in organizations large and small - or is often done incorrectly if done at all.

- Budgeting, by Bob Denis, Maureen Vavra, John Dick ... you'd think IT has this basic function under control, but sadly not. Read this article for excellent advice.

- The Metrics of IT: Management by Measurement, by Shel Waggener and Steve Zoppi. One of my favorite topics, and this team provides outstanding advice and keen insights.

Other articles are as well written, and span topics from architecture to strategic planning. Taken as a whole, this is a sourcebook that is filled with both knowledge and experience, and should be on the desk of every CIO, seasoned and new. I also recommend visiting the site that supports this book (paste the ASIN number, B0001EHNFK, into the search box for all products on this page). The site contains additional articles, news and other books in this series that CIOs, IT managers at all levels, and subject matter experts will find useful.

CIO Reference Manual
As a CIO I though CIO Wisdom hits the nail on the head on many of the challenges and issues facing today's CIO's. Sound and practical advice from those actually performing in the job was quite refreshing to the theoretical approach found in many other books on this topic. I only wish that many of my customers (business line leaders and executives) would read this book to better understand the value of IT can bring to our organization.

My only critique is that some of the concepts discussed in the book where not fully flushed out when the author was talking about solutions. Of course there have been entire books written on some of the topics covered in CIO wisdom.

I was particularly impressed by the Communications, Governance, Marketing and the Business Intelligence chapters.

Putting Offerings into Right Perspective
Although this book is primarily targeted to IT-leaders or those who intend to become one I'm sure this book is also highly valuable for all CEOs and Marketing and Sales VPs of startup companies who are tarketing established corporations. This book will give them guidance to put their offerings into right perspective by giving insights about CIO's success strategies and challenges. And the structure of the book makes it easy and enjoyable reading for busy executives - from the first foreword to the last chapter.