8 hard truths CIOs must learn to accept

That’s driving up spending on AI, but it’s not bringing in the finances needed to put the data house in order, says Ted Schadler, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.

“CIOs have to accept that their current budget does not allow them to do the transformative work in data that’s necessary,” he says.

What’s equally challenging? CIOs must accept the fact that they’ll have to ask for that money — and sell the CEO, CFO, and board on getting it.

“They’ll have to find a way to engage the CFO in a conversation about funding,” Schadler says.

2. Actually, there’s not enough budget overall

There’s never going to be enough money to do everything the business wants, says Marc Tanowitz, managing partner for the advisory and transformation practice at digital services firm West Monroe.

“CIOs have to accept that, because that’s the reality they live with,” he adds.

But savvy CIOs have learned not just to accept that truth but to navigate around it, he explains.

“The great CIOs always say yes. They say yes to what the business wants, but they say, ‘But here are the implications: We can do this [project you want], but you have to be OK not doing these other things, and if you can’t be OK with that, how else can we accomplish what you want?” Tanowitz explains.

3. IT will be blamed even when you can’t deliver everything

CIOs don’t just contend with demands that outpace available funds: They have to deal with taking the blame for falling short or falling behind business expectations as a result, says Jenica McHugh, a managing director in Accenture’s technology strategy and advisory practice.

“It may be a hard truth or just unfortunate, but it seems that IT is blamed for the fact that they cannot deliver on everything that the business wants. The business may be saying that they’re not getting the ROI they expected, or they’ll say IT is too slow,” she says. “But when I work with clients, it’s very unusual for me to find an IT organization that is way worse than their peers. It’s usually that they’re pretty good. It’s more that the expectations for IT are unreasonable.”

To avoid that scenario, McHugh says CIOs need to get better at managing expectations.

“That’s why there’s a lot of focus on things like financial transparency, so you’re able to tie IT services to the funding IT receives, so everyone has the information needed to have a conversation on the trade-offs between cost and value,” she explains.

For example, a CIO tasked with cutting costs by 10% needs to ask “what service does the business want to relax to drive down costs” so the business is clear on the trade-offs and doesn’t blame IT for the results.

“Business has more control over the cost of IT than is normally accepted,” McHugh adds, “because ultimately IT is a service organization and the volume of costs is going to be aligned with the volume of services and the level of services it provides.”

4. Knowing change is constant is never enough

CIOs often talk about how change is constant; how the pace of that change is accelerating; and how they, their colleagues, and their organizations must be prepared. But chances are, they won’t be — despite the CIO’s best efforts.

“There is only one thing that a CIO will tell you they have enough of, and that is change. There is so much change that they can’t keep up. It’s an immutable truth that you’re always going to have a ton of change and you won’t have enough visibility into it,” Tanowitz says.

Another difficult fact: “No one will be asking whether IT can handle all that change,” he says.

“So CIOs have to be able to incorporate it into their work. The CIOs who do well with change are those who can break down change and fit those changes into things they’re already doing. They have to be really good at that stop-start-continue exercise. They still may not be ahead, because they don’t know what the next change is. But they know that that’s OK. They just have to be able to address it,” Tanowitz says.

5. Tech managed outside IT will always be an issue

“There’s always going to be technology that is managed by resources outside the IT organization, resources who have brought that tech onboard to address some sort of business need. That’s the hard truth,” says Erica Hausheer, senior vice president and CIO of software company Teradata. “And with the pace of change, the pervasiveness of technology at work and in everyone’s personal life, and the tech savviness of new generations, that all means that technology managed outside the IT organization will continue. So trying to fight against it, trying to get it all into IT, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.”

Hausher says she does not call such technology “shadow IT,” though, saying she thinks the term detracts from the fact IT should collaborate with the business teams deploying the tech so that together they can manage risks and “do the right thing for the company.”

“Some of that technology will be OK, but some might pose more operational and security risk than we’re comfortable with, and those are the ones we want to go after,” Hausheer says. “I don’t think trying to tackle it all is a good approach. Trying to collaborate to manage risk is how you address it.”

6. The world runs on ‘hastily written and largely untested software’

Decades ago, Steve Wilson wrote software for the first implantable defibrillator. It had 40,000 lines of code, which took 25 person-years to write and 10-person years to test.

“Now 30 years later we have an internet-connected lightbulb, and there’s no reason to do it except it’s cool, and that has 500,000 lines of code,” says Wilson, who today works as vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research.

Such connected devices and the digital world as a whole are running on millions upon millions of lines of code that have not undergone the same rigorous development and review as those that ran that early medical device, according to Wilson.

“CIOs are presiding over a world of hastily written and largely untested software,” Wilson explains. “We have software systems we don’t understand, they’re not predictable, they’re not properly tested, and I don’t think that’s acceptable.”

That’s a particularly problematic state when it comes to artificial intelligence, and in particular neural networks, given that they’re used to power systems such as autonomous vehicles.

Wilson says this world of “hastily written and largely untested software” creates numerous risks, including a heightened chance of successful cyberattacks on the software supply chain.

Addressing this may seem daunting, but Wilson says CIOs have some remedies.

“We have to test a lot more. We have to be more critical buyers of technology: Insist on test history. Ask about the software development lifecycle. Look at independent testing for software before it’s released. Be on the lookout for marketing claims for deep learning and neural networks because, frankly, a new product that has neural network technology, to me, that’s not a feature, it’s a potential bug,” he says. “CIOs also should be asking, How new is this stuff? Do I really want to buy version 1.0 of an artificial intelligence system?”

Wilson says he gets that these are tough steps for CIOs to take, given the “enormous commercial and economic pressure” they’re under to use emerging tech to quickly deliver business outcomes.

He also gets that CIOs can’t solve this alone.

“It’s a marketplace and sociality problem,” he adds. “So we also need to have a hard look at ourselves and ask, Do we want to move fast and break things when the consequences of breaking software these days is almost unlimited?”

7. Being pushed out of your comfort zone is core to the job

The pace of change, the amount of tech introduced and managed by the business units and even individual workers, the level of risk the organization agrees to assume with new tech — all this pushes CIOs outside their comfort zone, Schadler says.

“As a CIO, you’ll be asked to do things you’re not comfortable with, or prepared or sometimes skilled to do. You’ll be pushed outside your comfort zone,” he says. “This is a common feeling that CIOs have; it’s not a corner case by any stretch.”

For example, he says many CIOs are being asked to bring in AI technologies that promise efficiency and productivity gains with little to no proof that they can deliver the expected gains, and they’re frequently being asked to do this without any extra funding to run the project.

Schadler advises CIOs to live with it.

“I think acceptance is at the heart of all these things,” he says, “but after that, you have to make some decisions.”

Schadler says CIOs can take steps to lessen the discomfort (and risk) of such situations — first by recognizing they’re not alone.

“Bring in those rational voices to bolster your own ability to shape the investments you’re going to make,” Schadler says, adding that privacy, risk, and security officers are often partners here.

So are third parties, such as service providers and consulting firms, because they typically bring a wealth of experiences and lessons-learned. “Bring them in as advisors to you and the business, to step into the conversation and to problem-solve,” Schadler says.

And learn to stretch as an executive. “Change your comfort calibration to take on risk that doesn’t violate corporate principles but that stretches your team’s ability to execute,” he advises.

8. Collaboration remains elusive

Despite the need for cooperation and collaboration to succeed, Kellie Romack, chief digital information officer at ServiceNow, says, “There are still too many people working in silos.”

“When I talk to industry peers, silos are one of the biggest challenges and typically the main reason things go off course. They happen when people try to move fast without taking time to connect the dots, or big initiatives get planned and funded through individual departments without collaboration,” she explains.

CIOs can counter that by serving “as the connective fiber for transformation.”

“We need to know everything about the business units we serve, so we can have the big-picture view and be that unifier,” she says. “For example, it’s important for CIOs to work with their CFO to understand the finance and budgeting roadmap, determine where tech can solve business problems, and identify other stakeholders who should play a role and give critical input.”