By Al Nugent

CIOs are physicians of sorts. They fix what’s ailing their systems. What’s more, good CIOs prevent IT “illnesses” before they occur. A good CIO also educates users, explaining how their IT practices affect the overall health of the company, just as a good physician explains how patients’ habits affect their health.

In fact, the physician’s precept of “First, do no harm” relates to the CIO’s job pretty well, too. In an ideal world, the CIO would be an all-knowing, all-seeing executive with 360- degree vision, meaning he or she keeps tabs on every part of the enterprise. This view encompasses the enterprise’s “body,” its IT infrastructure and back-end systems; its “mind,” the CIO’s user base; and its “soul,” the business processes these employees enable and support.

Unfortunately, some CIOs don’t follow the physician’s directive. Rather than avoiding harm, they act first, then ask questions later. Some also continue old and obsolete habits, simply because that’s the way things have always been done. Such CIOs see only what’s directly in front of them; in so doing, they risk missing the bigger picture.

Why is achieving a 360- degree view of the business such a challenge? Budget constraints are one big reason. The average CIO is so busy keeping the lights on — and spending 70 percent to 80 percent of the budget to do so — that he or she often lacks funding for strategic improvements. Then there’s the labor drain, which marginalizes IT employees, forcing them to spend the bulk of their time on relatively low value activities.

Further, many CIOs live in a culture of meetings in which talk replaces action. Certainly, planning is an important part of the CIO’s job, and all CIOs need to meet periodically with colleagues to work through problems and create strategic plans. But some CIOs attend too many meetings, with little to show for it.

Fortunately, all these problems can be alleviated, even eliminated, when the CIO achieves a 360-degree view of the business. Then the CIO leaps at least one or two steps ahead of any problem or need. The first requirement of 360- degree vision is communication. CIOs can do everything right within their own departments, but if they’re not talking and listening to those outside the IT function, they’re most likely missing a good deal of important information.

What’s needed is a meeting of the minds between business and technology executives. This can happen only when each side walks a mile in the other’s shoes. Both sides benefit by the mutual realization that, while their challenges may seem disparate, all are equally eager for the enterprise to succeed.

Also, CIOs need to ask increasingly business-oriented questions about their systems. Today, when an IT system or process breaks, the first question the CIO asks is, What has changed? Then representatives from each technology discipline gather in a room and argue about who is at fault. But with a 360-degree view, supported by a portfolio of integrated solutions, the CIO can rapidly point out the changes and perhaps even perform the remediation.

In fact, I propose that CIOs start asking questions before problems occur. Every week, everyone in IT — network, data center operations, software developers — should sit down to ask, Why are we doing things this way? In other words, IT needs to be the department that prevents systems from breaking, and that also introduces new systems in a trouble-free manner.

A final component of the 360-degree view involves educating the business. Too many people outside the IT world— including CEOs and other high-level business executives — still think of IT as a money pit. At the companies where these executives work, IT’s contribution to the business will by definition be underappreciated.

The more technological improvements the CIO can implement successfully, the more the CIO can help the company grow. But to do this, CIOs need buy-in from the business. That’s why CIOs need to build better business cases for preventive IT medicine. They need to persuade the business side that when it comes to IT, proactive is far better than reactive. CIOs also need to better explain IT’s cost and complexity —and the often high priced skills it requires.

All this will require a genuine conversation, one in which CIOs sometimes admit to the daunting challenges they face. But once this is understood, the business and IT will together reap the benefits of 360-degree vision.

Al Nugent is CA's Chief Technology Officer.