Non-technical CIOs

I worked for were exactly like that. They attended the meetings and this is what happened. The regulatory agency had a request, they conveyed it to the Functional Department in a meeting where my boss, the manager of operations improvement also attended, The functional department came back with a different version of the request and my boss came away with something altogether different from the other two versions of the request. Then in turn, he came to me with his version of it that was too vague to understand, so I went back to my boss for clarification, who never had the time nor information to clarify his request. I would then go back to the requesting functional department who would give me their version of the initial request, then they would give me a folder that had the specifics of the original request from the regulatory agency. After studying it and realizing neither my boss nor the functional department got it right, I would prepare the project and have to argue and prove that my boss and the functional department's requests were innaccurate and finally submitting it to the regulatory agency, who was happy that it was exactly what they wanted. Every project was like this. It was exhausting.

You know, there are managers who don't know what "numerators" and denominators" are and that can't understand that a fraction is also an indexed ratio, even when the original request explicitly states how summarized data is to be interpreted/considered as per the original package of the request. I don't know how many times these individuals wasted my time and energies.

I've had bosses that didn't understand the technical aspects of the job and bosses that didn't understand the business aspects. Believe me when I say I'd rather have bosses who don't understand the technology!

When dealing with anyone I'd rather they understand their job not mine. I can bring my knowledge and skills to the table myself. I don't need them to repeat it. I need them to bring other knowledge and skills I don't have. If I want peer review, I'll get peer review. Similarly, when I deal with my people, I expect them to know more about their job than I do... otherwise why have them at all?

The one thing that has caused me grief repeatedly is when my manager didn't know his/her own job. Which typically wasn't technical in basis.

Glen Ford
Can Da Software
IS Project Management

Just because someone lacks some technical expertise, let's not assume they are not good leaders and managers of IT.

I will agree that poor communication, lackluster vision and weak management has no place in IT leadership. However, I would agree that those qualities have no real place in any type of management or leadership position.

Good leaders can lead regardless of their lack of expertise. They provide vision, and communicate at all levels of the chain of command. They learn fromthose they lead.

If I worked for someone like that, I wouldn't care whether she/he knew the intricasies of Java, or Windows 2000, or UNIX. Those skills can be taught. Good leaders have talent and training in leadership.

So, maybe the issue is not whether a CIO has technical ability, but whether he/she has leadership ability.

I have a supervisor who is an accountant by trade turned Cobol/mainframe programmer. He is a darn poor programmer. It was the decision of upper management that it would be easier to train someone to program who already had the business knowledge rather then to train a programmer the business.

I am a web developer and he doesn't understand the technology, not the programming, the analysis, the testing, nothing.

He is used to supervising accountants. There is a real difference in leadingand supervising programmers. If management doesn't understand the technology then they need to be open-minded and/or have their technical people sit in meetings with them so that they can understand what is going on.

My customers often understand the technology much better then my management. My managers look like idiots when they sit in on meetings and start asking questions that they should have asked me before the meeting started.

I had a great supervisor once. She was a mainframeprogrammer at one time and did not understand PC/web technology. When I asked her for something, she would say prove it. I would right her a paper in terms that she could understand. If she didn't then we would discuss what I had written and thenshe would give me a decision. She didn't know the technology but looked at the industry as a changing world and that she had to get on board.

Need to know technology? No. Open-minded and willing to learn? Yes. Understand that IT professionals are a different breed of people? Yes. Willing to say they don't understand? Yes. Good leadership skills? Yes. IT management have a different road to walk then other management styles.