CIO Dashboard

IT Skills

6 Steps to Close the IT Skill Gap

August 28, 2010
Thumbnail image for 6 Steps to Close the IT Skill Gap

Guest Post by Rob Boudrow and Bob Audet Recent research reveals that 72% of executives place above average importance on talent management, yet only 44% of their companies have done an above average job in building the foundational capabilities to manage and improve talent.  During a recent project with a health care CIO, we observed this gap in practice and want to share some of our observations. Early-on, we saw four major issues: higher reliance ...

...

4 comments Read the full article →

Software as Soulcraft?

September 7, 2009

In his book Shop Class as Soulcraft, Matthew Crawford contrasts the fulfillment from working with your hands with the abstract world of the knowledge worker.  For an abbreviated version, check out his NY Times essay.  Being a closet Maker myself (more here), I was drawn into this topic as I often struggle with the creative limitations of the tools of our trade – laptop and phone. In the essay, Crawford says: High-school shop-class programs were ...

...

3 comments Read the full article →

CIO Tenure: What is Wrong (if Anything)?

April 22, 2009

Along with IT project failure rates, the average time a CIO stays with a company is one of the most often quoted metrics in our trade. Recent studies cite that 1 in 4 CIOs are fired for poor performance and CIO’s have an average tenure of 4.4 years. These don’t seem to bode well for the CIO. Why is the tenure so short?  And, is this seemingly short tenure really a bad thing? While certainly ...

...

11 comments Read the full article →

IT’s Keystone Skills

April 16, 2009

Process issues are not alone in contributing to IT’s success or failure. People (and their skills) are also part of the “holy trinity” of People – Process – Technology, the three interrelated building blocks of any business capability, IT included. With the dramatic uptake in outsourcing over the last several years, CIOs have been faced with a new set of organization design challenges and skill needs. In fact, many IT shops have remade themselves to ...

...

3 comments Read the full article →