首席信息官们分享了他们今年在平衡运营和创新、IT 和业务之间的裂痕以及如何利用生成式人工智能等新兴价值创造者方面学到的经验教训。
在过去的一年里，首席信息官们面临着一系列问题，经济、政治和技术事件为各行各业的组织带来了不确定性和机遇。
出于对这一切意味着什么的好奇，我们请 IT 领导者回顾这有些动荡的一年，并反思他们学到的东西。以下是他们分享的关键要点，以及这些见解将如何塑造他们作为 IT 领导者向前迈进的行动。
1. 维护现有 IT 环境至关重要
关注基本面的需求被认为是过去一年的一大收获，首席信息官们表示，如果基础IT不能满足要求，他们就无法像组织所要求的那样灵活、快速或强大。
有些人承认他们以艰难的方式学会了这一点。
“今年我们收到了大量的请求，随着这些请求的涌入，我们看到需要更好地照料我们的景观，”威斯康星州自然资源部首席信息官 Ricki Koinig 说。“我们很难跟上各部门的所有好想法和优先事项，因为每次我们前进时，我们都会因为我们的环境而碰壁——也许是没有记录下来的东西，或者它太旧了。”
Koinig 说，首席信息官（包括她自己）必须将他们的 IT 环境视为一个花园，需要不断照料才能产生最佳回报。她说，她和其他首席信息官必须了解并理解环境中的内容，他们必须能够确定环境中的内容，以便他们的 IT 团队可以战略性地在环境旁边和之上进行部署。
同样，Koinig 表示，首席信息官及其团队必须将维护现有环境作为优先事项，同时实施新元素;这种平衡的方法确保了一切顺利地结合在一起。
Koinig 说，她将在 2024 年将这些信念付诸实践，旨在在制定新举措和培育现有举措之间建立更好的平衡。
2. 永远不要低估在基础上表现出色的重要性
同样，首席信息官们表示，过去的一年加强了在基础方面表现出色的必要性。
临床试验管理软件制造商Clario的执行副总裁兼首席信息、技术和产品官Jay Ferro承认，这个口头禅对大多数CIO来说并不陌生。不过，他说这值得记住和重复，因为它现在和以往一样重要。
“你可能会被流行语、闪亮的物体、变形分散注意力，但很多时候你会被提醒——以不太好的方式——你必须保持火车准时运行。这是你做那些更酷的事情的门票，“他说。
Ferro 说，他全年都在提醒这一信息，尤其是当 IT 短缺的报道成为新闻时——就像西南航空在 2023 年伊始获得的头条新闻一样，此前其超载的 IT 系统对假日旅游季节造成了严重破坏。
3. 敏捷性、适应性和灵活性也是如此
技术进步的步伐不断加快，最明显的是生成式人工智能的出现和快速采用，这也凸显了敏捷性的重要性。
“当我回想起 2022 年 12 月时，我们拥有我在职业生涯中见过的最重要的技术，那就是生成式 AI。大型语言模型已经存在了几年，但生成式人工智能带来了特别快的变化速度。而且它不仅掌握在内部技术专家手中;每个人都在使用它，这些人用它做了一些美好的事情，“专业服务公司 Nash Squared 的首席信息官 Ankur Anand 说。
阿南德说，这项技术的发展和采用速度，以及它的民主化使用，使企业内部对敏捷性和适应性的需求成为了一个鲜明的焦点——这些特征对于任何想要快速创建新的运营模式并在闪电袭击时抓住“世界上发生的创新”的组织来说都至关重要。
“我们迫不及待地想让传统的需求和交付模式迎头赶上，”他说。“我们需要灵活应对正在发生的世界。组织必须更加敏捷和协作，因为事情每天都在变化，需求每天都在变化。
4. 不要拖延——尤其是在变革性技术方面
与此相关的是，肖恩·韦彻（Sean Wetcher）表示，2023年表明，不再有任何观望态度的地方，尤其是在变革性技术方面。
“停滞不前不是一种选择——除非你的企业愿意放弃竞争对手的竞争优势，”软件制造商Boomi的首席信息官Wetcher说。
他以人工智能为例，他说：“领导者应该通过专注于推动业务价值的因素，确定其组织利用人工智能的最佳方式。例如，考虑如何将人工智能应用于组织中的流程，为客户提供更具吸引力的体验，简化和优化核心运营，或通过产品、服务或业务模型的集成和自动化来推进转型计划。
这是 Wetcher 牢记在心的一句话。
“今年的人工智能转型强化了我们一直采取的方法，即每一个决策都必须与业务成果挂钩，”他说，并解释说，他的公司建立了一个强大的框架——包括一项人工智能政策，其中包含负责任的人工智能采用的明确指导方针——以促进和支持人工智能融入其运营。
5. 业务和 IT 并不像您想象的那么一致
Gen AI 在过去一年中吸取了其他经验教训。
IT 领导者 Daniel Uzupis 就是这种情况，他引用了许多商业领袖希望全力以赴使用生成式 AI 的报告，即使 IT 部门出于各种原因就其使用限制提出建议，或者 IT 部门发现出色的用例，但却被业务恐惧所击倒。
Uzupis于10月成为Union Community Care的首席信息官，他表示，这种情况向他表明，在许多地方，业务部门和IT团队之间仍然存在“巨大的脱节”。
“我不能说问题是什么，我不认为这是任何一方的错误，但我确实认为这是两者的结合，”他说，并补充说，部分脱节源于许多人对信息系统和IT团队角色的持续误解。他还认为，他们低估了 IT 可以提供的价值是另一个问题。
“我们（信息系统技术）对组织运作方式的理解比人们想象的要好，”他说。
与其他首席信息官一样，Uzupis 看到了 IT 在所有职能部门的工作如何让技术团队了解组织的优势、劣势和需求。但 Uzupis 发现，一些企业并不欣赏或利用 IT 可以为战略规划带来的洞察力。
他说，企业会计实践加剧了这种情况，因为财务部门关注的是年度数据，而战略目标的IT投资往往是多年的努力，这种不匹配继续在许多组织内部造成紧张关系。
“有时，组织做出的战术决策对组织的长期成功不利，”他说。
6. 应对人工智能需要采取全面的方法
首席信息官们表示，在过去的一年里，他们也学会了如何应对生成式人工智能——以及整个人工智能——因为有些人全心全意地接受了它，有些人害怕它，还有一些人不知道该怎么想。
“你对一些领导者有如此巨大的变革欲望，但其他人则站在另一边说，’不，我们不能这样做，’”制造公司 Avient 的首席信息官 Amy Evins 说。“所以你必须教育人们它是什么，它是什么样子的，以及你将如何对待它。
为了解决这个问题，Evins认为最好的策略是采取一种非常有意识的方法来利用这项技术。她首先确定了构成人工智能使用边界的原则，然后制定了政策，以确保实施将在这些边界内发挥作用。
“人们将使用人工智能，我想，’我该如何与他们合作？我不想禁止人们探索它，那么我该如何安全地启用它呢？所以我给人们一个沙盒，可以说’去’，但要留在这个封闭的[沙盒]中，“她解释道。
其他首席信息官表示，他们也利用过去一年的经验教训来具体化他们的人工智能（尤其是生成式人工智能）方法，并指出将良好治理和其他现有最佳实践应用于使用这项技术的重要性。
例如，Ferro说，他已经开发出一种方法，专注于优先考虑预计能带来最大价值的项目，并从小处着手，证明价值，然后扩大规模。
“首席信息官们也被炒作所吸引。但是你只能下这么多赌注。因此，请专注于贵公司的最佳用例。你可以在边缘进行创新，但要确保你所投资的东西对你的公司和你的客户有用，“他补充道。
7. 灵活的工作模式（做得好）可以带来红利
对于Ferro来说，持续的随处办公选择使他确信，这种工作场所政策不仅会继续存在，而且还要求像他这样的首席信息官优先考虑实现灵活的工作。“这真的是对用户体验的深思熟虑，”他解释道。
这意味着进行小组访谈并创建用户组以提供源源不断的反馈;查看故障单，找到表明问题和需要改进的地方的模式;并提供充分的培训，以确保所有员工都能舒适和自信地利用协作工具和其他工作场所技术。
这也意味着要想方设法帮助团队（包括 IT 部门内部的团队）走到一起进行协作、联系和庆祝。
“这意味着你有空，你正在积极主动地外展，你表现出感激之情，你不只是在等待事情来找你，而是在做抽查。你不仅关注员工的生产力，还关注他们作为个人，“Ferro 说，并指出他的 IT 员工分布在 30 多个国家/地区。“我们必须照顾好整个人。在这个混合工作的时代，我们都习惯了屏幕上的孩子和宠物。你必须靠拢并接受这一点。
8. 尽管如此，RTO 并没有那么糟糕
另一方面，一些首席信息官表示，过去一年的报告显示远程工作的弊端让他们重新平衡了员工的日程安排。
克拉克马斯社区学院的首席信息官兼首席信息安全官 Saby Waraich 就是这种情况。他指出，关于 2023 年工人生产力下降、人们同时从事两份工作以及日益增加的孤立和心理健康问题的一般报告是重新评估远程和混合工作状况的原因。
Waraich 的团队已经完全远程工作了一段时间，现在每周有三天在现场工作。他计划在明年初重新评估该时间表，以确定是否将办公室时间表提高到每周四天。
9. 为意外做好准备
过去一年浮出水面的另一个教训是，需要为可能不在议程上的事件做好准备。
正如 IT 领导者 Sam Segran 所解释的那样，首席信息官们一直在为长期的优先事项而努力，因此，许多首席信息官没有为来自左翼领域的变化做好准备。
“过去几年，首席信息官的主要优先事项是业务协调、网络安全和基础设施弹性、用户体验、数字化转型、数据管理、包括 AI/ML 和量子计算在内的新兴技术以及供应链问题。然而，2023 年最大的两个收获是生成式人工智能的影响率和范围的压倒性增长，以及来自政治和社会方面的影响，“他说。
德克萨斯理工大学首席信息官兼IT副总裁Segran表示，这两起事件使一些首席信息官处于被动模式，并指出首席信息官们“争先恐后地整合、管理、促进、资助和支持生成式人工智能使用的巨大增长”。
与此同时，他表示，围绕TikTok、微信和其他技术出现的担忧和限制“给首席信息官带来了额外的运营挑战，包括增加网络安全和运营成本、满足合规性以及帮助客户在可行的情况下寻找替代技术。
Segran 说，首席信息官在前进时应该牢记此类事件，并采取行动更好地应对。他列举了首席信息官对新闻主题有充分了解的必要性;为所有员工提供持续培训;加强与非IT合作伙伴的合作;并使用基于行为的政策，即使在不断发展的技术环境中也能保持相关性和恒定性。
英文原文：
IT leaders’ top 9 takeaways from 2023
CIOs share insights on the lessons they’ve learned this year about balancing operations and innovation, rifts between IT and the business, and how to capitalize on emerging value creators such as generative AI.
CIOs confronted a host of issues over the past year, with economic, political, and technology events creating both uncertainties and opportunities for organizations across all sectors.
Curious about what it all meant, we asked IT leaders to look back on the somewhat tumultuous year and reflect on what they learned. Here are the key takeaways they shared and how those insights will shape their actions as IT leaders moving forward.
1. Tending your existing IT landscape is critical
The need to focus on fundamentals was cited as a big takeaway from the past year, with CIOs saying they can’t be as nimble, fast, or strong as their organizations require if the foundational IT isn’t up to snuff.
Some admit they learned that the hard way.
“This year we had a huge influx of requests, and with that influx we saw the need to better tend to our landscape,” says Ricki Koinig, CIO of Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources. “It was hard for us to keep up with all the good ideas and priorities that the divisions had, because every time we moved forward, we hit a wall because of our environment — maybe it was something that wasn’t documented or it was too old.”
Koinig says CIOs — including herself — must think of their IT environment like a garden that needs to be continually tended to yield the best returns. She says she and other CIOs must know and understand what’s in the environment, and they must be able to identify what’s where so that their IT teams can strategically plant alongside and on top of it.
Similarly, Koinig says CIOs and their teams must make tending their existing environment a priority along with implementing new elements; that balanced approach ensures everything grows well together.
Koinig says she’s putting those beliefs into practice in 2024, aiming to create a better equilibrium between working on new initiatives and nurturing what’s already in place.
2. Never underestimate the importance of being brilliant at the basics
Similarly, CIOs say the past year has reinforced the need to be brilliant at the basics.
Jay Ferro, executive vice president and chief information, technology, and product officer at Clario, a maker of clinical trial management software, acknowledges that this mantra is not new to most CIOs. Still, he says it’s worth remembering and repeating because it’s as important now as it has ever been.
“You can get distracted by buzzwords, shiny objects, transformation, but so many times you’re reminded — in not so good ways — that you’ve got to keep the trains running on time. That’s your ticket to doing those cooler things,” he says.
Ferro says he was reminded of that message throughout the year, particularly when reports of IT shortfalls made the news — like those headlines Southwest garnered as 2023 started, after its overloaded IT systems wreaked havoc on the holiday travel season.
3. The same goes for agility, adaptability, and flexibility
The ever-increasing pace of technology advancement, most notably seen with the emergence and rapid adoption of generative AI, also highlighted the criticality of agility.
“As I reflect back to December 2022, we had the most important technology I’ve seen during my career land, which was generative AI. Large language models had been around for a few years, but generative AI brought about a particularly rapid pace of change. And it wasn’t put only in the hands of the in-house technology experts; it was used by everybody, and those people did some beautiful things with it,” says Ankur Anand, CIO of professional services company Nash Squared.
Anand says the speed of the technology’s evolution and its adoption, as well as its democratized use, put a bright spotlight on the need for agility and adaptability within the enterprise — traits that are critical for any organization that wants to quickly create new operational models and seize on “the innovation happening in the world” when lightning strikes.
“We can’t wait for traditional demand-and-delivery models to catch up,” he says. “We need to be flexible to the world as it’s happening. The organization has to be more agile and more collaborative because things are changing day by day and demand is changing more and more each day.”
4. Don’t delay — especially on transformative tech
On a related note, Sean Wetcher says 2023 showed that there’s no longer any place for a wait-and-see approach — particularly when it comes to transformative technologies.
“Standing still is not an option — unless your business is willing to forfeit competitive advantage to rivals,” says Wetcher, CIO of software maker Boomi.
He cites AI as case in point, saying “leaders should identify the best ways for their organization to leverage AI by keeping a laser focus on what drives business value. For example, consider how to apply AI to processes in your organization to deliver more engaging experiences for customers, streamline and optimize core operations, or advance transformation initiatives through the integration and automation of products, services, or business models.”
It’s a message Wetcher takes to heart.
“This year’s AI transformation reinforces the approach we have always taken, that each and every decision must be tied to business outcomes,” he says, explaining that his company established a robust framework — including an AI policy with clear guidelines for responsible AI adoption — to foster and support the integration of AI into its operations.
5. Business and IT are not as aligned as you might think
Gen AI played into other lessons-learned over the past year.
That’s the case for IT leader Daniel Uzupis, who cites reports of many business leaders wanting to go all-in with generative AI even as IT advises on the limits of its use for various reasons — or as IT finds great use cases only to be shot down by business fears.
Uzupis, who became CIO at Union Community Care in October, says such scenarios showed him that “a massive disconnect” remains between business units and the IT team in many places.
“I can’t say what the problem is, and I don’t think it’s a fault that rests on either side, but I do think it’s a combination of the two,” he says, adding that part of the disconnect stems from the ongoing misunderstanding that many have about the role of information systems and the IT team. He also sees their underestimation of the value IT can provide as another issue.
“We in [information systems technology] have a better understanding of how the organization works than people think,” he says.
Like other CIOs, Uzupis sees how IT’s work across all functions gives the tech team visibility into the organization’s strengthens, weaknesses, and needs. But Uzupis has found that some businesses don’t appreciate or take advantage of the insight that IT can bring to strategic planning.
Enterprise accounting practices exacerbate the situation, he says, as financials look at yearly figures while IT investments for strategic goals are often multiyear endeavors, a mismatch that continues to create tensions within many organizations.
“Sometimes organizations make tactical decisions that don’t work well for the long-term success of the organization,” he says.
6. Addressing AI requires a comprehensive approach
CIOs say they’ve also learned over the past year how to take on generative AI — and AI as a whole — as some have embraced it wholeheartedly, others fear it, and still others don’t know what to think.
“You have this huge appetite for change with some leaders, but others are on the other side saying, ‘No, we can’t do this,’” says Amy Evins, CIO of Avient, a manufacturing firm. “So you have to educate people on what is it, what does it look like, and how you’re going to treat it.”
To deal with that, Evins decided the best strategy was to take a very intentional approach for utilizing the technology. She started by identifying the principles that form the boundaries for AI use and then developed policies to ensure that implementations will work within those boundaries.
“People are going to use AI, and I thought, ‘How can I partner with them? I don’t want to prohibit people from exploring this, so how do I safely enable it?’ So I’m giving people a sandbox and can say ‘go’ but stay within this contained [sandbox],” she explains.
Other CIOs say they, too, have used the lessons of the past year to crystalize their approach to AI (and generative AI in particular), noting the importance of applying good governance and other existing best practices to the use of this technology.
Ferro, for example, says he has developed an approach that focuses on prioritizing projects projected to bring the most value and on starting small, proving value, and then scaling.
“CIOs get swept up in the hype, too. But you can only place so many bets. So focus on the best use cases for your company. You can innovate on the fringes, but make sure what you’re investing in is useful to your company and your customers,” he adds.
7. Flexible work models (done well) can pay dividends
For Ferro, the continuing work-from-anywhere option has convinced him that this workplace policy is not only here to stay but also calls for CIOs like him to prioritize the enablement of flexible work. “It’s being really deliberate about user experience,” he explains.
That means holding panel interviews and creating user groups to provide a steady stream of feedback; reviewing trouble tickets to find patterns that indicate problems and places for improvement; and providing adequate training to ensure all workers are comfortable and confident leveraging collaboration tools and other workplace technologies.
It also means finding ways to help teams — include those within the IT department — come together to collaborate, connect, and celebrate.
“That means you’re available, you’re doing proactive outreach, you’re showing gratitude, you’re not just waiting for things to come to you but doing spot-checking. And you’re not just focusing on employees’ productivity but you’re focusing on them as individuals,” says Ferro, noting that his IT staff is spread over 30 countries. “We have to take care of the whole person. In this day and age of hybrid work, we’re all used to kids and pets on the screen. You have to lean into that and accept that.”
8. Still, RTO isn’t so bad
On the other hand, some CIOs say reports over the past year that show the downsides of remote work have them rebalancing their employees’ schedules.
That’s the case for Saby Waraich, CIO and CISO at Clackamas Community College. He points to general reports about lower worker productivity in 2023, people working two jobs simultaneously, and increasing isolation and mental health concerns as reasons to reevaluate the state of remote and hybrid work.
Waraich’s team had been fully remote for a while and is now working back on site three days a week. He plans to reassess that schedule early next year to determine whether to bump up the in-office schedule to four days a week.
9. Be ready for the unexpected
Another lesson that this past year has surfaced is the need to be ready for events that may not be on the agenda.
As IT leader Sam Segran explains, CIOs had been working on longstanding priorities and as a result many weren’t prepared for changes that came out of left field.
“The major priorities for CIOs for the last few years have been business alignment, cybersecurity and infrastructure resilience, user experience, digital transformation, data management, emerging technologies including AI/ML and quantum computing, and supply chain issues. However, the two biggest takeaways from 2023 have been the overwhelming increase in the rate and scope of impact from generative AI and impact from the political and social fronts,” he says.
Segran, CIO and vice president of IT at Texas Tech University, says those two events left some CIOs in reactive mode, noting that CIOs were “scrambling to incorporate, manage, facilitate, fund, and support this tremendous increase in the use of generative AI.”
Meanwhile, he says concerns and restrictions that arose around TikTok, WeChat, and other technologies “placed an additional level of operational challenge on CIOs in terms of increased cybersecurity and operational cost, fulfilling compliance, and helping customers find alternate technologies where feasible.”
CIOs should keep such incidents in mind as they move forward, Segran says, and take actions to be better positioned to respond. He lists the need for CIOs to be well-informed on news topics; to provide continuous training for all employees; to increase collaborations with non-IT partners; and to use behavior-based policies that can remain relevant and constant even in an evolving technology landscape.
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