The CIO's First 30 Days, Part III

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  Strategy  

PART III -  Assesing IT Service Levels--Satisfaction, Issues, Complexities

This is the final installment of the three part series on the strategies and tactics a newly appointed CIO can use during their first 30 days on the job to help insure their success. In this installment we will be looking at assessing how existing service levels impact how the CIO shapes their go forward strategy for IT. Once again, the answers to each question are accompanied with strategy shaping suggestions and guidelines.

What form do Service Level Agreements (SLAs) take?
Question: Is there a complete lack of SLAs?
Strategy: No need to panic.  Service Level Agreements are great but only if the culture is open and supportive of the idea.  Sometimes trying to implement SLAs can backfire and become a sticking point of great angst.  You don’t want to create any anxiety as the new CIO since most times it gets interpreted as you being difficult to work with. However, if IT’s relationship is faltering with peers and users, then an SLA may be just the thing to indicate that the past doesn’t equal the future. Start with a very simple approach, keeping the language simple and the service level promises moderate.  Allow the SLA concept to evolve and mature.

Question: Are there Verbal understandings only?
Strategy: Verbal understandings are great …

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