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Interview
What Is the CIO's Job, Anyway?
8/16/2007
HUFF: Not surprised, but affirmed. Most agreed that the CIO position is less a technical role than it is a strategic, visioning role.
CALHOUN: Can you share a few key points from the discussion?
HUFF: The CIO must be adept at building relationships amongst the institution's constituency, as well as within the shop itself.
In some cases, mostly in small shops, there are some hands-on technical skills required, but the majority sided with the strategic over the technical role.
However, the CIO must be current in his knowledge of technology, insofar as he must be able to understand the solution sets in particular instances, as well as "speak the language" accurately with his technical staff.
Still, the CIO is purposed to ensure the mission of the institution is supported by technology as well as it possibly can be.
He must ensure that his staff is skilled enough to be able to support that mission, among other things, and thus his talents should be more suited for strategically placing technology in its appropriate role, rather than spending his time performing e-mail server administration and the like.
CALHOUN: Is it possible to summarize some lessons learned from that e-mail exchange?
HUFF: Not really lessons learned, although it can be seen that way.
Essentially, the CIO needs to ensure that those outside the information technology shop itself understand that his maximum effectiveness as CIO is when he is a supporter of the institution's strategic plan, mission, vision, and goals, and to a manager of the hands-on staff who also support the institution's mission.
The "new CIO" has a different set of skills than was required a decade ago. No longer should the CIO--a relatively new term--or the IT director be expected to recite the seven layers of the OSI model and how each layer relates to each other. No longer should the CIO be expected to describe the database structure of the ERP system being implemented.
Rather, the CIO should be expected to lay strategy in support of the vision of the institution. When I was asked what my vision of technology is for the institution, I replied that the correct way to state the question is to ask "What is the overall vision of the institution?" I then would do my best to define what would be the best technological strategy to support that vision.
CALHOUN: That's familiar language to me, it's essentially at much of the core of what my employer, the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP), is about. And we would say that you can pretty much insert the title of any significant institutional leadership position on campus for the title "CIO" and say the same thing. Apparently that's a hard lesson to learn.
Some might say that technology is such an important part of higher learning that the CIO should have a prominent place at the table during the formulation of strategic plans and institutional missions and visions. Did the conversation address that? Do you agree? If you do, in what words would you say that to, say, the CAO or the president if you were a new CIO (or a CIO candidate) at a university?
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