Book in CIO Critique - Assignment Example

The author’s idea on the IT role and that of the CIO in the industry is that it is rapidly changing. The CIO days as the principal manager are long gone. Currently, both the IT manager and CIO need to be productive business leaders who are conversant with technology. Grasping the strategically aligned organization framework and applying its ideas will assist in releasing the management’s full potential as leaders (Lane, 2011).

In covering people, the author’s contributors stress on the relevance of recruiting and collaboration supported by some great notions on talent management and employee development. The chapter on people also contains a vast amount of detail on the CIO's role in each section as well as the career needs of the CIO (Lane, 2011).

The book brilliantly handles the technology part by focusing on how better to handle the technology folder. Strategies such as assessing an organization's IT portfolio effectiveness using on-budget and on-time percentages of projects to correspond with the needs of the actual functionality could be effective performance strategies. Other more efficient implementations of IT portfolio management are to assist the organization to prioritize IT projects so that fewer assets could be managed to guarantee IT’s placement with maximizing IT investment and business priorities.

In terms of compliance, IT professionals need to be conscious of the compliance need with many different kinds of laws. Definite rules have to be used, and they may need supervisory reporting to agencies that control such compliance. There are different company policies necessary to heighten the effectiveness of the company's profit-making efforts.

The book states that in the CIO world, there is nothing more important than project quality. If one identifies himself or herself as a quality fanatic, they should put CIO weight behind project quality and adopt some simple strategies that project leaders, quality leaders, PMOs, and business partners will gain tremendous rewards. Although quite simple, some of these recommendations may be hard to implement, but they are what are necessary for the necessary quality pursuit.

The book also shows that IT is essential in balancing the workload and is one of the most required materials in a contemporary business. The idea of a balanced workload may seem like a hard reality, no matter the size. The average response to working hard causes costly errors and burnout. As shown in this analysis, managing resource distribution through different IT departments and on a daily project basis will not solve the issue. However, once this obstacle is seen as an important IT-comprehensive demand/supply problem, the solution becomes more direct.