Lecture of AIU Workshop@NIT Silchar

1. 1
Leveraging ICT for administrative
efficiency- Need for a CIO
8/22/2015
Prof. Fazal A Talukdar
Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering
National Institute of Technology Silchar

2. What can ICT do in an organization?
• Routine jobs in a very transparent manner
• Tackling media issues
• Reputation built over a long time gets destroyed
at a moment of time- immediate reaction and
response
• Using social media to reach a wider audience at
almost zero expense
• Local and central level administration and
autonomy can be seamlessly integrated
• Need to have a CIO (Chief Information Officer)
8/22/2015
2

3. ICT System Management
• Dynamic, ―open‖ systems
• ―System integration‖ goes far beyond
technical issues
• Balancing cross-organizational tensions

4. 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

5. The Role of the CIO
• Handling and managing the total ICT system
• CIO’s office should be seen as an extension of already
IT 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

6. The Role of the CIO
• 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
• Focus on the conversation and interactions that
link the functional parts into a strategic whole

7. The Role of the CIO
• Units responsible for fielding new systems:
―We need to do a lot of work on PC and server common operating
environments. Because we are finding out that servers have
different disk drives on them, different versions of Oracle, different
versions of the operating system. And as a result of that we can’t
distribute software in a rational manner.‖
• Units responsible for security:
―From the information warfare perspective diversity is not such a
bad thing. If every piece of software is absolutely standardized,
one hole gets you in everywhere. When an adversary has to figure
out which executable is on which computer among 1,300 possible
options, that makes his targeting problem hugely more difficult.
That’s a fundamental point that’s almost always missed.‖

8. The Role of the CIO
• Units responsible for fielding new systems:
―We need to do a lot of work on PC and server common operating
environments. Because we are finding out that servers have
different disk drives on them, different versions of Oracle, different
versions of the operating system. And as a result of that we can’t
distribute software in a rational manner.‖
• Units responsible for security:
―From the information warfare perspective diversity is not such a
bad thing. If every piece of software is absolutely standardized,
one hole gets you in everywhere. When an adversary has to figure
out which executable is on which computer among 1,300 possible
options, that makes his targeting problem hugely more difficult.
That’s a fundamental point that’s almost always missed.‖

9. 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 non-
existent (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

10. 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

11. 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—team-building,
facilitating cross-boundary communication and activity,
assuring that ICT activities are aligned with
organizational goals and strategies, and institutionalizing
desired change

12. The Role of the CIO
• ―Given the high risk for failure of teams, the
CIOs who lead [collaborative] groups require
business, technology, team-building, project
management and communication skills to be
effective.‖
Jessica Lipnack, co-author of Virtual Teams

13. The Role of the CIO
• At special times, CIO must go beyond the ―fulcrum‖ role
to one of greater authority and stronger leadership.
• ―There are bureaucracies that are designed to slow
down decision-making and there are places where you
want to do that—but in this case, because of time
urgency, the bureaucracies were either pushed aside or
stepped aside and allowed that rapid reaction to take
place. And you need to be able to adapt your
organization to do some of those things.‖

14. The CIO and Technical Communication
• CIO’s office should be the glue that integrates the many
facets and perspectives of an enterprise-wide ICT
system
• CIO works partly through central authority, but more
commonly through the creation and ongoing support of
cross-functional entities focused on cross-boundary ICT
issues
• Fundamental skills include communication, facilitation,
team-building, and creative use of information tools—
central skills of technical communication

15. 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 goals is
the perspective of technical communication

16. 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

17. 17
The End
Q & A
8/22/2015