CIOs can earn a seat on the board by rightshifting performance

CIO.co.uk reports that a survey of 100 CIOs, conducted on behalf of Salesforce.com, found that just 3% have a board-level position.

That survey found that 51% + 13% = 64% of the typical CIO's time is spent solving IT issues & patching software respectively, while another 17% is consumed administering systems… a total of 81% on non-creative work that adds no value from the customers' perspective. This is consistent with other findings.

At SMS, our rule of thumb is that planned work is performed typically only 60% of the available time (on a good day). Furthermore, we find that the typical IT/IS organisation spends only about 20% of the available time (and effort) on value-adding work (note: not all planned work adds value!).

Yet some firms consistently spend better than 80% of available resource on value-creating work.

The distribution of firms (and projects) with respect to performance is highly skewed to the left. It is not a neat Gaussian distribution.

Business is concerned to increase revenues, reduce costs & manage risks. Unfortunately, the CIO & his (it usually is a 'he') colleagues often are perceived to be more concerned with technology (the means) rather than with the ends. Justified or not, that perception keeps the CIO out of the board room.

Approx. 80% of firms put up with pretty poor performance. On most measurement scales (eg. productivity, velocity, value-for-money, quality of work products, net promoter score, etc.) only some 20% score higher than one, while the scale extends to 5, 10 or beyond. The vast majority of CIOs, & their employees, have never experienced 'high performance'. So they miss opportunities to rightshift.

To improve the customer-focus of their organisation, CIOs need to get out & about. Challenge staff by asking whether the tasks performed add value from the customer's perspective. If not its waste! So stop doing it.

CIOs who want a seat on the board will need to learn how to rightshift the performance of their firms. There are no silver bullets… but there are systematic approaches that deliver results in reasonable time scales. If you are a C-level executive and want to learn more, then you will be welcome to participate in one of the Strategic Insight Europe seminar that will be run in Leeds and London during week #43 and #44 respectively. Register here.