Fostering Innovation

3Conventional Wisdom Is Wrong

If you're a sitting CIO right now, how are you doing? Use Table 3.1 to assess yourself. Answer honestly; nobody's looking. By the way, you can write in this book. You bought it.

Table 3.1: CIO Self-Assessment

Question	Yes/No/Don't know
Are your systems reliable, with 99.9% uptime?
Do you score over 90% on an internal customer satisfaction survey?
Does your board of directors (board) consider IT a competitive advantage?
Does IT provide value, continually delivering new capabilities?
Do the CEO and CFO brag about IT in public presentations?
Are you providing cost-effective services?
Are you invited to informal executive conversations because the CEO values your input?
Do your company employees find it easy to use their tools to get work done? Are their files in the cloud and easily accessible?
Do other department heads treat you as an equal?
Is IT turnover lower than the company average?
Is your team fully engaged? Do they over-deliver?
If I asked everyone on your team to list the top three IT priorities, would they all give the same answers?
If I asked all the VPs in your company to list the top three IT priorities, would they all give the same answers?
Is IT leading the way on innovation in your company?

If you answered yes to most of these questions, call me—I'd like to feature you in my next book. The rest of us have some work to do.

Compared to our executive peers, our profession is still ...