Both the Silicon Valley Watcher and Gartner capture the tone for CIOs as we enter into 2005. The Silicon Valley Watcher described a panel of four leading CIOs (Levi Strauss and Company, Agilent Technologies, Microsoft, fireman's Fund) as having a mood not unlike three funerals and a wedding. Additionally, Gartner "[predicts] that 2005 will be a year fraught with perilous change ... economies, globalization and regulatory demands will create a business need for IT, but technology professionals will have to redefine their roles to show that they are as savvy at business as they are with technology ..."

Time to put those professional new year's resolutions into effect it seems. Deloitte and Touche recently made available their publication "CIO 2.0: The Changing Role of the Chief Information Officer". On Deloitte's list (although in no particular order), list item #1 for the CIO is the question of how to generate shareholder value. With CEOs seeing technology net-net as a barrier to change as opposed to an enabler, well this is quite a hot seat for the CIOs to be in.

The 2005 environment should provide opportunities for CIOs and service providers to these CIOs to rise to the challenge. No longer should the question be "can we get the job done?". I continue to be amazed by how many IT organizations are satisfied with a simple, project management view of the world (getting things done on time, on budget and according to customer specifications). The questions have to continue to shift up the value chain and towards "what jobs should be done, and what quantitative and qualitative value are we creating for the company by getting these jobs done?".

Steve Shu