I’ve been developing the final exam for my IS 6100 students. It’s only March 1, but I’d like to have the exam posted by April 16, a date associated with another painful submission here in the USA.
Yesterday I attended a web conference about the roles of the CIO (chief information officer).
In many North American organizations, the IT director role is migrating to a CXO position that reports directly to the CEO or president.
In IS 6100, we consider information systems and information technology in terms of tactics and strategy. The CIO has control over both short-term and long-term decisions.
One interesting result of the survey discussed at this web conference was that CIOs tend to spend most of their time managing legacy and short-term issues, instead of strategic new technology issues. It’s not surprising that one noted researcher, C.K. Prahalad, has estimated that maintenance of legacy systems accounts for as much as 85% of some IT budgets.
Christopher Koch may have been thinking of this problem when he wrote his post, “Why IT Sucks”. His discussion addresses the wicked problem that faces CIOs — balancing conflicting tactical and strategic roles.
Ben Worthen counters with an equally plausible argument — IT doesn’t suck. Information systems suck — a lot. From clunky user interfaces to complicated procedures, more corporate users seem to feel that their IT department focuses more on managing these systems than making the user experience efficient effective.
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