I began this blog earlier this year because in working with IT
executives around the world, I noticed a trend that many began in technical
positions and grew into their leadership positions with minimal formal training
opportunities to develop their IT leadership skills. Ernst & Young saw this same trend and
noted in their study, “The DNA of
the CIO: Opening the door to the C-suite,”
that most CIOs have technology-related degrees and only a small
percentage have MBAs.
Yet, more and more businesses expect their CIOs to be business leaders
not just technologists. This might give
pause to ask, “Why are there so few IT executives with formal leadership training
if they are expected to be leaders?”
Increasingly universities offer some sort of IT Leadership track within
their business programs but these programs are too few and new to have supplied
the market with enough formally trained IT leaders. Also, a quick web search reveals limited
professional training opportunities to build practical IT leadership
skills. There tend to be many
conferences aimed at helping CIOs build their vision but few aimed at helping
them make that vision a reality. Basically,
many IT executives are learning IT leadership skills via on the job training
while leveraging their natural abilities, professional networks and personal
resourcefulness.
That’s admirable but it can also be a bit scary. I think human nature causes many people to feel
a bit vulnerable if they admit they need more skills, especially if there’s no
training to help them.
In my own little way, I’m trying to help by creating this blog. But I also tried to do something a bit bolder. I added an IT Executive leadership training
track to IBM’s very popular Enterprise 2014 event. This year, IBM’s Enterprise Conference is
being held at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas from October 6 -10.
Historically IBM’s Enterprise Conference has an Executive Summit track
that helps IT and business executives imagine the realm of what’s possible so
they can create an IT strategy which uses technology for business competitive
differentiation. This event began years
ago and increases in popularity every year.
It also has a technical track directed at building very specific
technical implementation skills. This too is a very popular and effective track
for its intended audience.
New to Enterprise 2014 this year is the IT Executive Management
Training track which focuses on building IT leadership skills and complements
the Executive Summit. Executives can
spend Monday and Tuesday at the Executive Summit hearing IBM executives provide
visionary guidance on using technology as a competitive differentiator and then
spend Wednesday and Thursday updating their IT leadership skills to ensure
success in making that transformation a reality.
The Executive Summit provides ideas on "what" your
organization can do and the IT Executive Management track helps you with the
"how." IBM Distinguished
Engineers (such as yours truly) and Executive Consultants with decades of practical
experience helping thousands of clients will lead sessions based upon insights
gained helping clients succeed.
Specifically the track includes the following sessions:
- How to Make IT a Competitive Business Differentiator
- Why Most IT Projects Fail and How to Make Yours Succeed
- Align IT and Business Priorities with a Structured Assessment and Planning Methodology
- Create a Common Data and Analytics Strategy that Supports all Your Business Units
- Practical Steps to Enterprise Cloud
- Make IT Essential to the Business through Enterprise Architecture and Governance
- How to Create Rock-Solid Business Cases to Get IT Projects Approved
- Anticipate Threats and Protect Your Business with a Security Framework Based on Governance, Risk Management and Compliance
- Create a Business Architecture That Supports Mobile and Social Applications
- How to Evaluate Which Applications You Should Deploy in a Cloud
Hope you can join us at Enterprise 2014 where you can make personal
connections with the contributors to this blog.
