What I Learned in School
The CIO for a large school district found that listening
to her peers on the educational side helped her rebuild
IT's credibility.
BY MARCIA BOHANNON
WHEN I JOINED Jefferson County Public
Schools as CIO in mid-2002, I knew I was walking into a
troubled situation. My predecessor had been asked to leave
amid allegations of poor fiscal management. IT's reputation
had taken a huge hit. There was so little trust in my department
that the only goal identified in the 2002-2003 district
strategic plan for IT was to end the year within budget.
There were no stated service or performance expectations
and certainly no expectations of strategic input.
There was also the matter of a multimillion-dollar deficit
that had to be paid off within two years, higher than normal
public scrutiny and an IT staff that believed it had paid
with its own blood for management's indiscretions.
On top of all that, the CIO position, which used to report
directly to the superintendent (equivalent to a company's
CEO), now would be reporting to the COO. I knew my path
would be a lot smoother if I had direct access to the superintendent
and her direct reports, but it was no surprise that my superintendent
was now organizationally shielded from IT. Jefferson County
Public Schools was truly an organization that felt it had
suffered greatly at the hands of poor IT management.
Because I was new to the district—and to K-12 education
in general—I knew I had much to learn. So I began
my tenure by meeting with people across the district. For
several months, I did nothing but listen and ask questions.
On more than one occasion, I was told that my predecessor
had reorganized IT within weeks of his arrival. This was
related to me with such distaste that I knew a fast turnaround
plan would not work.
It quickly became apparent to me, however, that some immediate
reengineering of both information technology and districtwide
processes was necessary. I decided to look inward first.
During my discovery phase at the district, I uncovered a
few ahas that identified areas for potential improvement.
One was budget management. The previous IT organization
had four separate departments, and their budgets were not
managed in any coordinated way. So I encouraged the use
of standard reporting tools for monitoring and reporting
actual expenditures versus budgeted amounts. And I provided
consistent training in the use of these reporting tools.
I also now require each manager to estimate expenditures
remaining for the year so that we can more accurately predict
year-end results. Although we're still working on this,
the budget process has improved by leaps and bounds. We
ended the 2002-2003 fiscal year with enough surplus to pay
off the technology deficit a full year early.
When I first came aboard, I discovered that we had more
than 100 projects going on within IT, with only 75 people
in the department. We had no formal process for initiating,
planning, monitoring, measuring or even terminating projects.
So I introduced a project management office to add structure
and discipline to the management of projects and initiatives.
I also reorganized my production areas to align with customer
needs. Where before my departments were segregated according
to product expertise, we now have teams of product specialists
grouped according to the functions they perform. We also
now have a new position focused solely on managing all customer-facing
personnel. The infusion of new ideas and new team arrangements
are promoting cross-department communication where it did
not exist before. But cleaning house internally was just
the beginning.
Those of us leading enterprisewide IT initiatives understand
that IT can't work in isolation. Good relationships with
business departments are critical to IT's success. Here
again, my department's reputation was poor. Business users
told me that during a recent ERP upgrade, IT had made decisions
about functionality and rollout logistics without consulting
users. My staffers told me that they had tried to ask the
users for input, but the users either didn't know what they
wanted or couldn't understand what they were being asked
about. Clearly, we had a glitch in communication.
So one of the first things I did was add a staff member
who focused solely on client communication, bridging the
gap between technical and business language. Although one
person within an organization of 12,000 employees cannot
interpret all customer needs, she has already made tremendous
progress in improving interaction between the instructional
departments and IT personnel. For instance, my new teams
now give users a head's up about planned outages and what
kind of downtime they might expect. I consistently receive
appreciative feedback from business managers about this
improved communication.
In 1998, the school district implemented PeopleSoft in
both HR and financial systems. When I was hired in 2002,
it was clear that the district had not yet achieved enterprisewide
collaboration as evidenced by the high number of point applications
still in use and the many piecemeal customizations needed
to maintain existing business processes. This shortcoming
offered me an excellent opportunity to make a real difference.
So I created an interdisciplinary executive steering committee
made up of the superintendent and her business unit leaders
to help with decision making on the PeopleSoft implementation.
This group reviewed and approved all customization requests
and made the major decisions about the project. Not only
did the formation of this committee move the burden of decision
making from IT to the business where it belonged, but it
had the added benefit of educating business leaders about
IT.
My next step was to broaden the committee's scope. Approximately
six months after the committee formed, I changed the scope
of its responsibilities to cover all IT initiatives. Its
existence has improved communication between IT and business
immeasurably.
One of the first challenges for any CIO, of course, is
getting a seat at the CEO's table as an equal member of
the executive team. To address this, I began one-on-one
meetings with the superintendent. Luckily, my manager (the
COO) was not threatened by these meetings, which introduced
me to the superintendent's style of decision making and
helped me to understand what was important to her. It also
gave me a chance to explain my approach and how IT could
help the organization. Establishing this contact has been
very important for both of us to build much-needed trust
and respect.
I try also to meet with individual department heads as
much as their schedules will allow. Each time we meet, it
offers another chance to share ideas and concerns. My experience
with similar situations in the past has taught me that patience
is critical. Listening and learning has helped me build
credibility faster than any quick turnaround strategy ever
would have.
I still have a long way to go. And I accept that IT may
never find a place at the superintendent's table. If you
find yourself in this position, the key question to ask
is: Am I upset because my place on the org chart is damaging
the business or throwing up roadblocks to my department's
success? Or is my dissatisfaction just a matter of wounded
pride? Either way, I counsel patience. Perhaps one day,
you and I both will be able to pull up a chair at the executive
table.
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Marcia Bohannon is the CIO of Jefferson County Public Schools,
which comprises more than 85,000 students and 148 schools
west of Denver. She can be reached at mbohanno@jeffco.k12.co.us.
Fuente: CIO.com |
