Grooming a Successor CIO

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.

  Organizational Project Management   Strategy  

Since 2008 or even before, few organizations have seen fit to include succession planning into their IT group. This seems especially true when it comes to the position of CIO. CIOs, like CEOs, create a culture for the organization they lead. If that culture is working, the last thing CEOs need is to find themselves in need of a replacement CIO due to the current CIOs retirement or resignation.

Recruiting viable CIOs is expensive and can create a disruptive void in the IT organization—and cause a material reduction in IT service levels as well. On the other hand, grooming a successor CIO can also create ripples in a tightly cost-controlled budget and make procrastination appear to be attractive options.

Over the past few years, many have weighed in on the challenges CIOs face when trying to identify and groom their successors. (In her article “The Replacements: Why a CIO Needs a Succession Plan,” Joan Indiana Rigdon provides excellent insights regarding those challenges.)

Having been a CIO who had to plan for a successor in order to pave the way for a much-wanted promotion, I found that the effort is daunting at best. I had spent about four years rebuilding a failed IT organization and function. To say the least, I was invested in the IT organization I lead. Finding someone to leave my “baby” to was no easy task; it required me to take an …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.