When the phenomenon called Cloud made appearance on the IT landscape, it promised to disrupt many existing paradigms. It was touted to be the silver bullet to solve all the budgeting challenges of the CIO including getting rid of the CIO. But as the landscape evolved, so did the confusion and complexity. Today, apart from just private or public, there's a Hybrid - the term that has stuck on. Does it work? 

Technology evolution creates many opportunities and challenges for IT departments and CIOs. The pace of change in recent times has been exponential with obsolescence setting in faster than the adoption curve maturity. IT forces the CIOs to evolve or perish. Are you moving with time or making an Early Retirement Plan (ERP)? 

Why do CIOs sell projects? There's the hypothesis about being proactive and partner to the business, something to do with alignment. Unless there is connect on both sides and endorsement from senior management, the CIO begins to appear desperate while others wonder why.  

The open acknowledgement of team work towards success ensures that producers and consumers do not see each other that way; rather they work to create an ecosystem that motivates progress. Having been part of a few matrix structures, I believe that finally the culture of the company (read CEO/Head) will determine success. 

Last week when I wrote about orphaned projects, applications and solutions that find no takers despite them having started life as perceived business critical process or need, many of the readers wrote back with their stories of orphanages within their companies. The problem has been around for a long time since the time IT departments started developing software forever changing stated and unstated business needs.  

Every organization has a (un)labelled IT orphanage that sometimes gets very crowded especially if the CIO and the IT team is unable to assert themselves or if they collectively work to create solutions that are disconnected from business reality. The CIO needs to highlight such instances transparently and openly to either change team behaviour and/or change business engagement and ownership. 

What is Big Data? Who needs Big Data ? Where does it fit into the maturity curve of an enterprise using BI or Analytics ? How do you partner with business who is still swamped by reports or dashboards at best? Actionable insights? When does a data warehouse become inadequate and Big Data become necessary? Are CIOs getting tangled by this elephant?  

Strategic discussions can only succeed when both sides have a complete agreement on the process and the outcomes. For the CIO to make progress, it is imperative to get the message across the layers of the functions which are impacted directly or indirectly. Any gaps here will lead to unaligned objectives. CIOs should manage the process such that they are able to create ownership towards the meeting of objectives. 

We all see favorite projects of CEOs and other CXOs faltering after a great pomp and show. They take away a lot of energy, budgets and resources to see through to fruition though rarely anyone wants to challenge the need or the relevance at that time. The emperor's new clothes will always be a parable with learning for everyone. 

A frustrated CIO once commented, where do I cut without impacting service levels? I cannot go short on licenses, nor on bandwidth, and service providers want inflationary increase, AMC needs to be paid, travel and training are already down; do I go to the CEO, or CFO, or better the Board with a begging bowl? The remark portrays the helplessness felt by many. Is there a way out?