My Way

Establishing a common thread that mark the CIO’s work, whatever the company or industry in which he operates is not easy. Each company, even if they belong to the same industry, has its own particularities, typical of an organization that, when formed by people, is changing permanently in its organizational culture and in its processes, especially in the present day in which the environment demands a quick and constant adaptation to it.

In this way, there are aspects that must be taken care of and increased, so that they form part of our good practices in terms of the management and leadership of our teams, which we must carry out.

1. Listen to your user (Customer)

You need to be always the «Best Friend» of people what you give your services. Especially because the specimen called «User», frequently to come to us with a solution in mind that, in my experience, is usually not what they really need. You have to look underneath everything that says what is their real need is and find a way to satisfy it in the most agile, simple and concrete way possible.

I have put some more comments about this in the article (in Spanish) «Primero lo primero» (click here)

We should always be borne in mind that the «User Experience» (UX) should not only refer to the final product that can be delivered to they, but to the entire process from the first contact to the satisfaction of their need. In this sense it is useful to think of them as our Clients, as if we were a consultant and we need them to buy the solution we are providing.

2. The important thing is business (information) NOT technology

Would you talk on the phone to a person sitting next to you?

I guess not (although I did see it done sometime). It is much more effective to turn around and speak to him directly in the traditional and analogous way, face to face.

What if he is at across the corridor, further away?…the answer is likely to be either «it depend» and different variables will come to play such as the immediacy with which the answer is needed, whether it is possible to move or not from one place to another, and even climatic factors to decide when the use of technology (telephone) becomes necessary.

The important thing is that the technology chosen is in function of the needs that must be solved and for that we must be clear about something that is very difficult for us to assume: Technology is not the goal, it is just the tool.

And it is in this way that in recent years progress has been made in the awareness of those who lead the technology areas that their functions are now more strategic than operational. You need to know who your customer is (business and systems), what they want and what they need (they are two different things). It can be very attractive to enter into Artificial Intelligence projects with Big Data to establish interfaces with the final customers, but if the problem is that Logistics does not have the right tools it needs, more traditional (therefore less challenging),use the latest technology in the front-end will be don’t any usefully.

Technology only for Technology, in a business it is useless.

3. Take care of your team

All that is done is through others, who are part, permanent or temporary, of the work team. The team must be able to know exactly what is expected of each of them and must be allowed to do what they do best. What we must always bear in mind at this point is that if we have been working in a sector for some time now, the team we have is the one that you have formed and decided to work with us, so if we cannot have confidence in what they will do, the problem does not lie with them but with the person who chose them.

But we must also be attentive to their motivations and needs, although not all of them can be satisfied at the same time, I have found that the knowledge that they can have personal achievements through collaborative or team work, keeps them permanently wanting to show what they can achieve.

Likewise, we must be grateful. The equipment is our hands and we must constantly be recognizing it. The thought of «They only do their job for what they are paid for» is the worst poison that can be used to achieve the synergies that will make the Systems area a real contribution to the business and not just a few equipment loaders.

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Regardless of where I have been, I have tried to respect these three guidelines and it has worked to a greater or lesser extent, I have found it gradually along the way and they have become part of what I do every day.

How ever, the details and the «weight» given to each one at a given moment depends on the environment in which one finds oneself, the specific culture of the organization and the «intuition» of each one of us, that is where one has to find the right balance, and as each time is different only remains to do things in the way each one does. In my case, my way.