Walk a Year in These CIO Shoes

Welcome again, Sun Inner Circle readers. Last month, I invited my colleague Leslie Lambert, Sun IT's vice president and chief information security officer, to share her expertise on the role identity plays in keeping information assets secure. This month, I plan to indulge in a little identity management myself after recently celebrating my one-year anniversary on the job.

I must confess I've learned a lot about the job and myself in the past year. A few months ago, I spotted an article that really resonated with me — "Nine Things CIOs Wished You Knew About Their Jobs." It made me start to think about some insights I'd like to share with you.

Manage the Budget Without Stifling Creativity
One of the biggest challenges I've faced in the past year is managing budgets, financial planning, and forecasts without stifling the creativity and technical capacity of the organization. Many seem to think that the two are mutually exclusive. However, a successful organization must include both sound budgeting and technical creativity. The problem is that if you don't manage your budgets carefully, you start to lose the confidence of those who fund theprograms in IT. But if you demonstrate sound fiduciary practices, confidence improves and you'll be in a much better position to present requests for additional funding, which leads to more opportunity for the technical staff to do the things they like to do.

An important lesson I've learned is the need to effectively communicate the need for the budgetary controls. From monthly staff meetings to all-hands meetings, I often include some discussion around budgets. I try to make it as non-intrusive and lightweight as possible and explain the value to individuals and the organization. It's an ongoing conversation.

Managing IT budgets requires discipline and structure. One key accomplishments this past year has been to establish a predictable operating model for IT, which includes regular program reviews with strong financial components. By instilling rigorous financial principles and providing training around them, we can then distribute operating budgets to managers and directors across the organization — empowering them to make faster decisions.

Balance Both Business and Technology — Every Day
There seems to be a perception that CIOs are either business-oriented or completely grounded in technology. For some people, this subject has become a matter of great debate, but frankly, I think it's a pretty tired conversation. The simple fact is that it's not an exclusive choice — a good CIO has to be both.

Mine is more of a business background, and on any given day I have to be able to switch back and forth constantly between technical discussions and business discussions. I know numerous CIOs with tech backgrounds who do the same thing. There's simply no way to escape the fact that the role of the CIO will never be purely business — nor purly technical. It will vary from person to person and company to company, but at the end of the day I'd argue that it's less about the business or technical prowess of the CIO — and more about the business VALUE he or she adds.

Remember Every Customer Is King, and Some Are Bigger Kings
Like most IT departments, we have two kinds of internal customers — Big C and Little C. The Big C customers are the other C-level business unit heads who pay our bills, and the little C customers are our end users. Interestingly, these two sets of customers often have different, even conflicting sets of priorities, which can frustrate those in IT who serve them.

Over the past year, I’ve come to accept that it’s a fundamental problem I’m never going to solve. Through effective communication and our IT engagement model, we have been able to organize some of our IT initiatives around accommodating these diverse requirements and are constantly looking for innovative solutions.

Only by partnering closely with the business are we better able to respond quickly to their changing needs. It’s a relationship built on mutual trust and understanding. For our part, IT must be able to provide reliable and predictable service levels. Once we demonstrate proficiency, we're secured a seat at the table, but it's a position that has to be earned. It’s not enough just to do the job. We have to go above and beyond to earn credibility and respect from our customers in the organization.

Here at Sun, my role as CIO has included participating in the external customer experience, as well. Each year, we conduct hundreds of customer briefings that enable us to give back our expertise to the broader community and to provide our IT staff the opportunity to sit down with IT organizations from around the world to share ideas and build relationships. Constantly remembering who the customer is — internal or external — helps us improve services and ultimately increase shareholder value.

The More Things Change, the More You Manage Them
A CIO needs to manage change on a daily basis. In today's economy, taking advantage of new opportunities depends on the organization's ability to manage change. After all, if you're not taking advantage of opportunities, your competition certainly will.

I tend to shy away from the word "change" because it has negative connotations for some people. Instead, I like to characterize the IT landscape as constantly evolving. As our culture, industry and society evolve, it's our responsibility as IT professionals to stay abreast of these transformations. We must provide the vision that helps our organizations anticipate technology changes and new business models that can help drive revenues.

Over the past year, I've made it a priority that we take a close look at how to apply new types of social networking technologies and phenomena to the next generation of our enterprise applications. It makes good sense because we know that the next generation of customers will be people who grew up with those technologies. By making enterprise applications more friendly and accommodating to these new users, we can stay ahead of the evolutionary curve.

Stress Less — Sweat the Fun Stuff!
In February, I stated that none of us can be effective on the job if we aren't managing our life equally well. And for those of you wondering, yes, there is the occasional day when I find my job very stressful. What I have come to appreciate, though, is that no matter how stressful this job gets at times, the many positive aspects of being CIO at Sun make it all worthwhile.

My advice to anyone considering a career in IT is that if you don't like helping people, don't go there. You need the kind of personality that derives a great deal of satisfaction from helping people, whether it's answering a simple help question or solving a highly complex business problem with technology.

For me, the positives start with living on the leading edge of exciting technology, seeing what's around the corner, and being able to develop innovative solutions that truly help our customers. That's the fun stuff. And to be honest, I look forward to every day on the job.

Bob Worrall
CIO, Sun Microsystems, Inc.