what’s the ROI on that?

This hard truth is one most IT leaders miss, according to Uzi Dvir, global CIO at digital adoption platform WalkMe. In his experience, Dvir says, fewer than 5% of CIOs spend any time talking about business outcomes or measuring the business outcomes created by the technology they deploy.

“The CIOs I speak with often only look at cost,” Anderson says. “And then they’re challenged with, ‘What’s the ROI?’” That’s a question CIOs often can’t answer, he says. Back when he was in a different CIO role years ago, he was rolling out some automation systems. “The finance group would say, ‘What’s the ROI on that?’ We would say, ‘We’ve got this infrastructure, this application, the training, and the rollout. There is no ROI.’”

Today’s CIOs can’t afford to make that mistake. “It’s important to measure business outcomes, not just technology,” says Damon Venger, CIO at CompuCom, a managed services provider based in Boca Raton, Fla. “You implement a new piece of software. You completed the project, it’s live and has 10,000 users. You declare victory because it’s done. But if the business outcomes are not there, it’s not a success.” And that means business and IT are in disagreement, he says. “IT says success; business says failure.”

Uzi Dvir

"7 hard truths of business-IT alignment," by Minda Zetlin. CIO. October 31, 2022

no one knows how to use them

In Scott Keller's book Leading Organizations: Ten Timeless Truths, co-written without colleague, Mary Meaney, he recounted a travel experience that is particularly salient on the topic of skill-sets. Scott was fortunate enough to visit East Timor some five years after it had become a fully independent country. He was disheartened to find that the country was riddled with poverty, in part due to its poor infrastructure, especially in light of the significant reconstruction investment that it and many other nations had made on independence. He wondered why things hadn’t changed.

As he was traveling through the country, he came across a field full of bulldozers, compactors, jaws, and all manner of heavy construction equipment ideal for road-making. The field was overgrown, the metal was rusting, and a few local kids were climbing on the equipment as if they were in a giant playground. “What’s all this?,” Scott asked. “Donations from China from when we declared independence,” came the response from his local guide. “What’s wrong with them?,” Scott asked. His guide replied, “Nothing, but no one knows how to use them.”

The aspiration of many countries, including China, to help East Timor develop as a nation was clearly bold and well-intentioned. The desired change, however, fell apart because the skill-set requirements to deliver the aspiration hadn’t been assessed or addressed. This example may seem extreme, but to us it’s emblematic of what we often see in failed change programs. Organizations make East Timor-like big investments in changing structures, systems, or processes without ensuring the skills are built to enable them to work the way they are intended. Our research backs up the premise: organizations that explicitly assess their current skill requirements against those required to fulfill their performance aspirations are 6.6 times more likely to succeed in their change efforts.

Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger

Beyond Performance 2.0: A Proven Approach to Leading Large-Scale Change. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2019

give employment to the laborer

Men and women of wealth, use your riches to give employment to the laborer! Take the idle from the crowded centres of population and place them on the untilled areas that await the hand of industry. Unlock your vaults, unloose your purses, and embark in enterprises that will give work to the unemployed, and relieve the wretchedness that leads to the vice and crime which curse your great cities, and that poison the moral atmosphere around you. Make others happy, and you will be happy yourselves.

Lorenzo Snow

Pure Religion: The Story of Church Welfare Since 1930 by Glen L. Rudd. 1995. P.365. Originally in Messages of the First Presidency, 3:334