Building a Better CIO

The concept of “alignment” can be seen as a spectrum. According to Bouchard, basic alignment means that at least the organization’s top decision makers are describing goals for the IT department to meet in a reactive fashion: “Here is what we want, IT, now get it done.” In what he calls a “post-alignment” environment, however, “IT can get involved in [business-strategy] discussions earlier and translate the goals of the firm into a strong technology strategy that will provide a competitive advantage.”

Using computer systems not only to support business goals but to add value to them is the sweet spot for these degree programs. “Information technology by itself has no value,” says Tsun Chow, who directs an MBA program with an information technology management specialization offered by Minneapolis-based Capella University. “To have value, IT must be translated into the context of a business and aligned with the business’s strategy.”

Common Threads

Most of these degree programs take about two years to complete, assuming the student—usually a working adult—shoulders a full load of courses. Most have online components; Capella’s is conducted almost entirely on line.

The majority of students have strong technical backgrounds but seek greater business knowledge, as well as communication and leadership skills. Others are managers with different backgrounds who want to move into IT-leadership roles or simply improve their understanding of how to use IT intelligently in their businesses. The programs don’t teach nitty-gritty computer skills like how to write code, but they include technical courses that go deeper into topics such as systems administration than a general MBA program would.

Common threads include concentrations on communication and people-management skills, aligning technical strategies with business goals, and using IT to add value to an organization’s strategy and operations, as opposed to taking a reactive approach.

It no longer requires much awareness-building to establish the importance of aligning IT strategy with business strategy, program directors say. Students already know that disconnects are common. They just want to learn how to attack the problem.

“Over the past five or 10 years, people have been realizing that there’s a gap that shouldn’t exist between strategic business needs and technical needs,” says Brandon Olson, director of the master’s program in information technology leadership at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth. Larger organizations have been “getting it” before the smaller ones, he says, though even in bigger companies, “there are still walls around certain IT pockets.” But by and large, “CIOs today are trying to look more at strategic needs, not just technical needs.”