Download Strategic Management of Information and Communication Systems

Chief Information Officers
and
Technical Communication
Mark P. Haselkorn
Department of Technical Communication
University of Washington
[email protected]
Haselkorn 2003
Overview
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Introduction and Thesis
ICT System Management
The Role of the CIO
The CIO and Technical Communication
2001
Haselkorn 2003
Introduction
• Standing Technical Communication on its
head
• Thesis: When the role of Chief
Information Officer (CIO) is properly
understood, the training and experience
provided in the field of technical
communication, augmented by additional
training and experience in management,
best suit the demands of this position.
Haselkorn 2003
ICT System Management
• Not primarily a technological activity
• Dynamic, “open” systems
• “System integration” goes far beyond
technical issues
• Balancing cross-organizational tensions
Haselkorn 2001
ICT System Management
• Toughest problems occurred not within areas
under responsibility of an ICT manager, but
rather within areas that cut across those
responsibilities
• These more holistic problems aren’t about
“hard” machine issues—involve integration of
and communication across the entire system of
systems that constitutes how an organization
knows what it knows and uses that knowledge
to help achieve its mission
• For example…
Haselkorn 2001
ICT System Management
• Balance central management and local execution
• Consider evolution of ICT issues over time
• Clarify ownership of and responsibility for ICT
systems
• Consider the impact of local diversity on ICT
• Consider the role of local autonomy in ICT
• Build trust between local ICT administrators and
central managers
• Strengthen horizontal ICT relationships across
the organization
Haselkorn 2001
ICT System Management
• Overcome funding disincentives to working across
organizational boundaries
• Assure that central ICT guidance is at an
appropriate level
• Address cross-boundary issues in life-cycle
management of ICT systems
• Tackle the informational effort needed to support
management of integrated ICT systems
• Address issues of organizational culture that
impact ICT
Haselkorn 2001
The Role of the CIO
• Since the mid 1990’s, CIOs have increasingly
been charged with managing an organization’s
information and knowledge systems, but there
has been considerable uncertainty as to the exact
nature of and appropriate skills for this position.
• What is enterprise-wide management of an
organization’s information and knowledge
systems?
• What does an entity devoted to this activity do?
Haselkorn 2001
The Role of the CIO
• CIO’s office initially seen as an extension of
already influential acquisitions and system
development function
– Technology the central component of an
organization’s information and knowledge activities
– CIO’s primary role as “owner” and manager of that
technology
• Activities centered on standardizing and
“keeping up” with new information and
communication technology
Haselkorn 2001
The Role of the CIO
• But as the list of system management tasks
demonstrated, enterprise-wide ICT
management is not primarily about functionally
organized technology
• If the CIO owns anything, it is the space
between these nodes of responsibility
• CIO’s focus needs to be on the conversation
and interactions that link the functional parts
into a strategic whole
Haselkorn 2001
The Role of the CIO
• Distinguish functionally bound ICT issues from
enterprise-wide ones
• Where issue resides within a functional
responsibility, role is greatly minimized or nonexistent (But often an incorrect assumption that
a cross-functional issue is bounded within a
particular functional responsibility)
• When an ICT issue is identified to be
enterprise-wide, take ownership
Haselkorn 2001
The Role of the CIO
• “Ownership” means assuring a single point of
contact providing consistent guidance at the
appropriate level
• Under normal circumstances, “ownership” does
not mean that the CIO’s office should be that
point of contact or own the problem parts
• The CIO owns the space between the parts—the
space that makes it a cross-enterprise issue
• Primary role is to identify relevant organizational
perspectives, determine best available
representatives of those perspectives, and then
link, guide, and empower those people and units
to manage the issue
Haselkorn 2001
The Role of the CIO
• Under the CIO’s guidance, a cross-boundary
entity defined to represent the relevant
organizational perspectives on an issue
becomes the point of contact
• Only such an entity, acting with the guidance and
authority of the CIO’s office, can balance
competing organizational goals that surround a
cross-boundary ICT issue
• CIO is the fulcrum in this balancing act—teambuilding, facilitating cross-boundary
communication and activity, assuring that ICT
activities are aligned with organizational goals
and strategies, and institutionalizing desired
change
Haselkorn 2001
The Role of the CIO
“Given the high risk for failure of teams, the
CIOs who lead [collaborative] groups
require business, technology, teambuilding, project management and
communication skills to be effective.”
Jessica Lipnack, co-author of Virtual Teams
Haselkorn 2001
The Role of the CIO
• At special times, CIO must go beyond the
“fulcrum” role to one of greater authority and
stronger leadership.
• At critical times like mergers and during security
threats, CIO may be required to assure speed
and flexibility in the face of slower, more
traditional methods
• Serve as a single point of contact for ICT
coordination outside the organization
Haselkorn 2001
The Role of the CIO
• But during “normal times”
– the CIO is not an owner of functionally
organized technology; rather the CIO’s office
is the glue that integrates the many facets
and perspectives of an enterprise-wide ICT
system
– the CIO works partly through central
authority, but more commonly through the
creation and ongoing support of crossfunctional entities focused on cross-boundary
ICT issues
Haselkorn 2001
The CIO and Technical Communication
• The fundamental skills the CIO must
employ to achieve these ends include
communication, facilitation, team-building,
and creative use of information tools—
central skills of technical communicator
Haselkorn 2001
The CIO and Technical Communication
• CIO generally needs to adopt a perspective
focused on strategic goals, the use of
information to achieve those goals, and the role
of individuals and information tools to facilitate
that use
• CIO’s perspective must consider the boundaries
of organizational lines and functional
distinctions, even as it works to remove their
potential negative impacts on cross-functional
information issues and objectives
• Again, this recognition of multiple audiences and
communicating to achieve multiple purposes is
the primary perspective of the technical
communicator
Haselkorn 2003
The CIO and Technical Communication
• CIO is owner of the information space between
functional nodes of an organization
• CIO is a communicator, a facilitator, and a
politician
• CIO is a technical communicator with extremely
high-level management skills
• Technical communication needs to partner with
related fields to produce these people. They
are sorely needed throughout industry and
government
Haselkorn 2001
…We are a culture that values mastery and control, that cultivates selfsufficiency, competence, independence. But in the shadow of these
values lies a profound rejection of our human wholeness. As individuals
and as a culture we have developed a sort of contempt for anything in
ourselves and in others that has needs, and is capable of suffering. It is
not a gentle world.
As life becomes colder and somehow harder, we struggle to create places
of safety for ourselves and those we love through our learning, our skills,
our income. We build places of security in our homes and our offices
and even our cars. These places separate us from one another. Places
that separate people can never be safe enough. Perhaps our only
refuge is in the goodness in each other.
In a highly technological world we forget our own goodness and place value
instead on our skills and our expertise. But it is not our expertise that
will restore the world. The future may depend less on our expertise than
on our faithfulness to life.
…The solution to the destructiveness in this world is not more technical
knowledge. Repairing the world may require us to find a deep
connection to the life around us, to substitute the capacity to befriend life
for our relentless pursuit of greater and greater expertise. It has been
said that it has taken us thousands of years to recognize and defend the
value of a single human life. What remains is to understand that the
value of any human life is limited unless there is something in it that
stands for the benefit of others and the benefit of life itself.
Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.