What Is the CIO's Job, Anyway?

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Interview

What Is the CIO's Job, Anyway?

8/16/2007

By Terry Calhoun

What is the CIO's job, anyway? Is it to know the nuts and bolts about every piece of software and hardware on campus? Is it to know "the seven layers" and be ready to get in there to fix an e-mail server? Apparently, there are those on campus who still look at the head "IT guy" that way.

Until recently, Dennis Huff worked at Houston Baptist University. While there, he kicked off what turned out to be an enlightening discussion on the CIO Constituency Group e-mail list. The subject line on his first post was "The New CIO":

With all the rapid advances in technology, do you find, like me, it is much more difficult to maintain a technical bent as CIO? I find I cannot spend time trying to get down to the detail that those who work for me are purposed to do. I spend my time visioning and managing resources to get the job done.

As I speak with my executives about the role of the CIO, I would enjoy responses to share of your ideas of how the CIO should run his IT department ... with more technical knowledge or with more management skills?

Huff, who received his Ph.D. in Information Systems from Nova Southeastern University, agreed to be interviewed about the subsequent e-mail conversation.

TERRY CALHOUN: Dennis, can you briefly describe what your job was at Houston Baptist University, when you asked this question, and tell us a bit about how you got to that point?

DENNIS HUFF: I was essentially the CIO. I held the highest technology office at the university. That meant I was in charge of all technology support at the institution, including visioning, planning, budgeting, etc., for technology in support of administrative and academic computing, telephony, and networking infrastructure.

It occurred to me that those outside the information technology shop had little idea of what it takes to run an IT shop; they had preconceived notions of the CIO role entailed and what skills the CIO possessed. It seemed as though, to those outside the shop, the CIO was "the computer guy," and, as such, was expected to know everything about all technology, personally, down to the level of those who report to the CIO.

CALHOUN: I remember that when I read your posts, I was thinking to myself how guilty I sometimes feel in my own job, that I am no longer as hands-on facile with the supporting technologies as I used to be. It's still pretty hard for me to ask our technical support staff for support, rather than just trying to do something for myself.

I think it may be one of the hurdles we all have to overcome within ourselves as we move away from hands-on roles in things. Strange, though, how unlikely it would be for the chair of, say, Romance Languages, to be expected to speak 12 to 15 languages, although I suppose some can.

Were you surprised at any of the turns the discussion took during the subsequent days of discussion on the CIO list?