Program Summary – Fairfield-Westchester SIM Meeting – February 16, 2006

Meeting Format

Each table was asked to discuss their hot topics and choose one for their table. These topics were then discussed – with audience participation – by a panel consisting of:

Norman J. Jacknis, CIO, WestchesterCounty

Ross Kudwitt, CIO, Timex Corporation

John Stevenson, former CIO, Sharp Electronics

Alan Guibord, Founder & Chairman, The Advisory Council – moderator

Table Hot Topics

  • Globalization – handling staff development, retention, leadership – geographic & economic
  • How do you do more with less – budget vs. demand
  • Balancing security vs. accessibility
  • SOX / security – the challenge IT has to endure – how to make it less painful
  • What happens if RIM BlackBerry goes dark?

Discussion Highlights

The discussion began with the overarching question of, “where is the IT organization of the future headed?” and the related question of, “How does a CIO get a seat at the senior executive table?”

  • CIOs need to go to business managers suggesting new ideas to improve the business.
  • IT understands what’s actually going on better than anyone else – a key to prioritization.
  • You earn respect with successful projects (e.g., fixing e-mail) that provide quick wins.
  • Find champions among business leaders who need help from IT.
  • Ask for more work.
  • Get out of your office and talk with the business.
  • Empower your people to suggest business process improvements.
  • Biggest challenge is communications – speaking the language of business.
  • Reporting to CEO/COO is more effective than to CFO.
  • Formal reporting is less important than relationships.
  • IT people underestimate their own skills.

Discussion then turned to the subject of globalization.

  • You have to determine what you can realistically make common without disrupting the fabric of governance.
  • Build a global community of IT people.
  • Strong processes are 10-times more important when global.
  • Training should include cultural sensitivity, as well as “simple” things like awareness of time zones.
  • Pick reasonable times for teleconference meetings to make the relative sacrifice fair.
  • Move people around. Bring people in and move people out.
  • Don’t cut travel budgets. Meeting face-to-face makes a difference.
  • Use instant messaging.

The next subject discussed was how to do more with less, along with the related subject of IT governance.

  • Offshoring
  • Make things low-touch when high-touch isn’t necessary.
  • Standardize.
  • Use “tough love” to make IT more productive.
  • Get rid of old stuff (hardware, software, etc.).
  • Look at underutilization of purchased applications.
  • Push back on the business about unnecessary IT services.
  • Use service level agreements.
  • Benchmark.
  • Business management, not IT, should justify projects.
  • The key to good governance is a good portfolio management process, which makes governance board meetings merely a “blessing” of the portfolio planning process.

Discussion then turned to security, including how to budget for it.

  • Take money for security from other projects.
  • Leverage Sarb-Ox, HIPAA, etc. to get security funding.
  • Integrate security with operational excellence.
  • Close the education gap. Having security plans on the shelf doesn’t solve the problem.

Finally, there was a brief discussion of how to reduce the cost and effort of managing mobile devices.

  • There was a lack of consensus as to whether outsourcing would help or hurt.
  • The benefits of mobility are worth the cost and effort.