CIO Wisdom II: More Best Practices

This book basically contains discussions with various CIOs about their changing roles within organizations. The authors examine not only how their roles have changed, but also how they have remained the same, and how the importance of marketing or persuading management, subordinates, and board members has changed their roles. Of course they also examine hardware and software issues that CIOs face and issues like securing the IT facility, running applications over the Internet, information management, models for evaluating Return On Investment, making sure that technology is user-driven without becoming controlled by those users, outsourcing and architecture, and IT governance and procurement. CIO Wisdom II is recommended for CIOs and those who wish to understand the internal and external pressures on them in the current business environment.

Real-world CIOs working in IT leadership positions know best what works, and their collective wisdom in CIO Wisdom II: More Best Practices offers solutions not only for IT professionals, but for any involved in business systems management. CIO Wisdom II can be used as both a business and computer classroom text and as a IT professional's reference: it covers everything from quantifying software return on investment to understanding how successful IT outsourcing works and how to secure IT facilities. A highly recommended pick based on practical experience in the IT management world.

The book is written by a number of CIO's and is broken into a wide breath of topics, one per chapter. Not every chapter will be appropriate for everyone; the best read will come from picking the top five areas of interest and start there. The points made in the book are good; however, a narrowing of topics and more detailed examples of how to implement the suggestions / strategies would have added punch to the book's overall impact. For me, the best outcome was refining my list of the top ten metrics by which I judge my effectiveness.

[Well, I haven't read "CIO Wisdom", so I can't compare it to this book.] The text spans a fairly wide variety of topics, all of which are germane to you if you are a CIO. Or CTO for that matter. Try not to take the title too literally. The book is worth reading even if you are not at a CIO or CTO rank. If you have any managerial responsibility for IT, then the material covered here has relevance. Having said this, not every chapter is likely to be of use to a given reader. There is a nice discussion on using RFID tags in a collaborative supply chain. RFID is certainly a hot topic in some circles. But if you are not involved with supply chain management, this chapter is moot. Overall, the chapters are fairly introductory about their topics. For instance, one chapter pertains to securing (protecting) an IT facility. But it is a short chapter that does not go into much detail. Another chapter talks about how to measure the return on investment on software development. It delineates various metrics like Earned Value Analysis and net present value. It differs from the rest of the book in that it is probably meant for a manager who hails from a technical background and is unfamiliar with financial terms. While the other chapters are likely targeted towards managers from nontechnical backgrounds. Perhaps it is best if you treat this book as an overview of its topics, and as a lead-in into more specialised and comprehensive texts.