Staying the Course as a CIO

DR JONATHAN M. MITCHELL is an IT executive with over 30 years of experience in global blue-chip companies. For nearly a decade he was the Chief Information Officer, Business Process Improvement Director and Corporate Development Director at Rolls-Royce. Prior to that he built a successful IT career at BP and GlaxoSmithKline, where he rose to become a Vice President. In recent years he has appeared in lists of the most influential Global CIOs in Information Week, CIO Magazine and Computer Weekly.Jonathan is a founder of CIO Strategic Advisors Ltd, a company which provides strategic consultancy and development for Executive teams using a network of respected former-CIOs. In 2014, he became the Non-Executive Chairman of the Global CIO Practice at Harvey Nash, one of the largest IT recruitment companies in the world. He has also been working as an independent industry expert with the UK Shadow Cabinet to develop a rescue plan for a major welfare IT project.Jonathan is a member of the Advisor Board for the Centre for Information Leadership at City University and collaborates with the CASS Business School’s Executive Education unit. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Chartered IT Professional and a past Chairman of the UK Corporate IT Forum.www.ciostrategicadvisors.com

“If you are a CIO or thinking about taking on the position, this book should be on your list of essential reading….it is an excellent book” (BCS, February 2015)“The distillation of 30 years of experience from a CIO who knows a thing or two about an extended shelf life” (i-cio.com, February 2015)“Michell gives useful advice on how to work through the toughest projects and solve some of the most pressing issues CIOs deal with today” (World Economic Forum, May 2015)“For IT professionals looking to fully integrate their function into the enterprise, 'Staying the Course as a CIO' is a valuable source of practical advice, all based on real experience.” (Good Reads, June 2015)

• Introduction xiChapter 1 Dislocated Stakeholders 1Wooden Poles with Holder 2Because They’re Worth It? 4The Joys of Middle Management 10Layers and Spans 11Middle Managers and the Linkage between IT and the Business 13The View from the Top of the Tree 16Bored Boards 18The Relationship Conundrum 19The Henry VIII Method 20The Customer/Supplier Model 20Teamwork! 23Could I Have Something Impossible Please? 26The Dead‐Hero Zone 26Magicians, Circuses and Keeping Something in the Tank 28Chapter 2 Pathogenic Projects 31IT Projects are Harder than Climbing Everest 33Not Everyone Gets to be a Pharaoh 36Don’t Start Anything You Can’t Finish 38Peaches Are not the Only Fruit 39Ungrouping Group‐Think 40Mugging by PowerPoint 42Back to the Himalayas 43Stalinist Project Management 44Undo‐able Projects 44Stalin’s Special Question 45Being Nostradamus 49My Piece of String is Skewed 51Things Can Go Badly Wrong, but They Rarely Go Badly Right 52Inoculating against Skew—Percentile Therapy 54What Happens in Projects Stays in Projects 56The Gates of Wrath 58Looking Up from the Pit 62Chapter 3 Seriously Shaky Software 63Software Just Doesn’t Wo.. 65Being Immune to Tangerines 70The Unfortunate Side‐Effect of Moore’s Law 72It Will be Fixed in the Next Release 74Upgrade or You Will be Banished Naked to a World of Loneliness and Isolation 75Belchware not Bloatware 77Patched, Leaking and Lost in a Maze 79The Wobbly Stack 81Stabilising Shakiness 84Safe Software 85The Safe Software Game 86Booking a Landing Slot at Heathrow 88Don’t Try to Improve a Da Vinci, Unless You Are a Rembrandt 89Bespoke Only When You’re Bespoken to 92Chapter 4 Obsessive Outsourcing Compulsion 95Outsourcing an Empire 97Strains of Outsourcing Compulsion 101Madness with Metrics 102Giving the Fox the Keys to the Chicken Coop … 103The Nineteenth Hole Contract 105Dedicated Followers of Fashion 106Finance is not about Engineering Anything 108Contract Accounting and Runaway Trains 110Faster than a Speeding Bullet … 113The Capability Argument 113The Economic Argument 114Better Out than In? 115Protecting the Crown Jewels 117Everyone Needs to Win 121In Summary 124Chapter 5 Chronic Consultancy Syndrome 125Consultants—The Hummingbirds of the IT Jungle 126Survival of the Sharpest 128Spotting Hummingbirds in the Wild 129An Expensive Dose of Aviary Assistance 130Predator or Prey? 131What Consulting Isn’t …? 132It Was Their Fault! 133The Magic of a Name 134The Consultant’s Crutch 135But What Consulting Perhaps Should Be? 135Forests, Trees and Spectacles 137You Are not Alone on Planet Earth 139Nothing New Under the Sun 141Hummingbirds Flap Harder than Cash Cows 142How Hummingbirds Turn into Cuckoos 143Answer 1—The Cuckoo Consultancy End‐Game Solution 147Answer 2—The Thin‐Edge‐Wedge‐End‐Game Cash Cow 147And Finally 148Chapter 6 Strategy Schizophrenia 151A Beginner’s Guide to World Domination 152Types of Strategy 154The Better Tomorrow 154The Grand Plan 158Strategy Schizophrenia—Balancing the Unbalanceable 161Summary 164Chapter 7 Bleeding Budgets 167A Beginner’s Guide to Building a Roulette Table 168How Much Are You Going to Spend? 168How Much Goodness? 170Which Investments? 174But What about Tomorrow? 177Putting Today and Tomorrow’s Investments Together 180Putting the Final Touches to the Roulette Table 181Placing the Chips 182Our Transformation Journey 184Other Funding Profile Examples 186Funding Choice 1—The Support Organisation 186Funding Choice 2—The “Go for it” Organisation 187Summary 188Chapter 8 Epilogue—What Might Overcome You? 191It’s Always the Same Culprits, Except When it Isn’t 191Failure and Folklore 194IT Leadership Morbidity Tables 195First Tier—Dislocated Stakeholders 195Second Tier—Money and Strategy 197Third Tier—Projects and Software 198Fourth Tier—Outsourcing 199Fifth Tier—Consultancy 199The Unknown Unknowns 200Acknowledgements 203Bibliography 207Index 211