You and your team are on a mission to trade with an Indian tribe deep in the jungle. What do you need most?
• Transportation
• Paperwork
• Liquor and trinkets
None of the above. What you need is a guide. This also goes for the tech jungle.
(1) There are no roads or signs in the jungle, only a maze of paths that only animals, locals and your guide can see. Some paths lead to predators or snares. Most lead nowhere. In the tech jungle, the CIO scouts the labyrinth of new technologies to spot opportunities, solutions, risks, and dead ends.
(2) You need a guide who understands you as well as he does the jungle. Your CIO should think like a salesperson, an accountant or an operations manager. He knows what IT can do for them. In order to better assist in the selection of systems, with their installations, configurations, data migrations, and everyday use, he should have a practical understanding of production, accounting, quality, HR, sales, marketing, international development and supply chain.
(3) Your expedition may be international and some of its members may not understand English. Your guide makes sure that nobody is left behind. The modern midsize corporation is often global, so your CIO should have real-life experience of the way different cultures think about work, authority and technology. The same IT project can succeed in one country and fail silently in another because users or managers cannot override their own culture. The CIO should have the skills required to deploy systems internationally.
(4) The Jungle is an ever-changing environment. Flash storms can transform the forest into a swamp and streams into torrents. Your guide helps you pack, makes sure that you are ready and is always by your side. So does the good CIO. He is a tireless problem-solver because things change all the time and IT comes with a hundred problems a day. He fights on the ground and in the background. He works to eliminate 90% of the reasons people have problems, while extinguishing fires as they arise. He trains.