Sunday, April 4, 2010

Last Week's Class Presentations

In our last class meeting, we heard from two guest speakers, Joyce and Dan. Joyce and Dan are in the unique position of being co-CIOs for their company. Since this co-CIO structure differs from the traditional single CIO model, it was tremendously helpful to have the opportunity to meet and hear from actual co-CIOs themselves.

The first speaker, Joyce, spent a great deal of time reflecting on her journey through the ranks of IT to her current position. I found it quite interesting that Joyce really focused a great deal on the importance of managing relationships within any organization. I found this to be a pretty refreshing mindset for an IT manager. So often, it seems as though IT departments become extremely impersonal. I think this is largely because IT professionals focus on projects and specifications while overlooking interpersonal interactions in the workplace. Joyce’s approach to both working and managing heavily stresses a healthy work-life balance. Again, IT professionals often end up working relentlessly to finish projects while putting their personal lives on the backburner. Throughout her career, Joyce has always made career moves and decisions based on the outcome on her family and personal life. This is really the most important lesson learned from her presentation. Unhappy and overworked employees simply won’t perform at their peak. Accordingly, these employees become difficult to properly motivate. I think Joyce is probably extremely effective as a CIO as I’m sure this mindset pervades throughout her organization’s culture.

The second speaker for the evening, Dan, had a much different focus throughout his presentation. Dan spoke to us about IT leadership models, job functions of IT professionals, and how these topics are affected by the constantly evolving world of technological innovation. Dan was perhaps in a more difficult position as the second presenter. Since our class has focused on the idea of co-CIOs throughout the semester, we were really interested to see how Dan’s ideas compared to Joyce’s, and how two distinct leaders could possibly collaborate to act as a single managing entity. I thought that the really interesting aspect of Dan’s presentation is that he explained that there is no defined model for IT management. In fact, Dan stressed the importance of finding a system which promotes healthy interactivity and communication among team members.

Overall, I think it was extremely interesting to hear both sides of the dual CIO arrangement, especially when put in perspective with what Shelley has shared with us about her perception of her organization’s management. In the end, I think the most important takeaway from these presentations is that people are capable of producing astounding results if they are not micromanaged, allowed to think and act independently, and are able and willing to communicate with peers and managers in the workplace freely and openly.

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