Discussion on:

The personal side of board relations: Three things CIOs should know

All good points. As for point one, I attempted that solution and had only one board member take the offer. If you can get them into the room for the education sessions, I'm sure you'd have some success.

I had the opposite problem. Board members who didn't understand the technology saying "no" to solutions because they didn't understand the technology (age on this board was a big factor) and constantly asserting that they didn't have time to come to the technology sessions.

I resorted to finding whitepapers and producing executive summaries to make my points and wore them down over the course of a year to get approvals for system upgrades but I never did completely crack that egg.

New counting process, 1, 2, 3, 3. What comes next???????

Sorry couldn't resist jumping on your typo. Then almost left a couple of typos in my comment, that would not be good.

Tony, your approach sounds more appropriate for most board members depending on their level of engagement. Unless you are working for a high tech company they probably don't care as much about the underlying technology as the results and risk mitigation. If you can explain the benefits, why your proposal is better than the alternative, and how you will mitigate risk in an executive summary they will probably never ask you why private cloud vs. big iron mainframe.

That extra #3 might be a remnant of using automatic numbering in word or similar. Weirdness ensues when breaking out a new paragraph, inserting an earlier point etc. etc. I always apply formats like that last, after all writing is complete, spell checked, proof read and ready to go.

As for the article, I sympathize, but admit I have been spoiled like a little Lord Fauntleroy when it comes to getting what I asked for from the higher-ups.