About Eric Bloom

Executive Director IT Management and Leadership Institute

IT Executive Coaching: 6 Best practices and the need to be IT oriented

All professionals, whether it be sales, finance, marketing, human resources, and yes, even IT, each have their own professional challenges, idiosyncrasies, terminology, performance criteria, and growth progression. While executive coaching for mid-level and senior executives can be successfully performed by experienced executive coaches regardless of their professional background, having professional experience similar to the person being coached, provides additional opportunities to provide value. For example, IT executive coaching provided by a former IT executive provides the opportunity, with the coachee’s agreement, to do the following: 1. Enhanced traditional question-based coaching discussions Question-based coaching is the hallmark and a best practice of the traditional executive coaching process, where the coach asks questions, with the goal of assisting the coachee in gaining clarity of their current situation and a deeper understanding of themselves and others. This technique is what gives well trained coaches the ability to coach people of all vocations and organizational levels. The concept is that the coachee is the expert, not the coach. However, if the coach and coachee share a similar professional background, then the questions asked by the coach can be more insightful and relevant, because the coach has a deeper understanding of the coachee’s professional challenges, terminology, and organizational micro-culture. 2. Acting as a sounding board and brainstorming partner Traditional question-based coaching also allows the coach to act as a soundboard. That is to say, that the coachee describes how they would like to solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity, and the coach then asks [...]

By |2022-10-17T19:49:21+00:00October 17th, 2022|
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The Great Hybrid Confusion: 5 tips for making hybrid work in IT

This post “How CIOs become IT thought leaders” was first published in my “Developing IT Leaders” column on CIO.com. When COVID-19 hit, IT had to adjust its internal processes and procedures, logistics, and security policies at the same time it was helping the rest of the organization pivot to a full work-from-home environment. Then, adding additional complexity to an already difficult situation, along came The Great Resignation, where many employees, particularly baby-boomers, decided not to return to work. For IT, this is doubly complex. For years, IT leaders have competed in the War for Talent to hire the right people with the right skill sets and experience at the right time.  Many of the people deciding to retire early in The Great Resignation were working on legacy technologies, such as Microsoft ASP pages, PowerBuilder, and other platforms that were leading-edge marvels in their day, but through the passage of time, have become the technical debt within our data centers—and notoriously difficult to hire for. Added to this is the ongoing need to support the billions of lines of production COBOL, which will outlive us all. While the move home was mandated by municipal regulation and fear of a widening pandemic, moving back to the office, staying fully virtual, or going hybrid is based on management decision. And it is proving to be much more complex than the move home in 2020—hence the Great Hybrid Confusion. Here are five tips that will help you successfully navigate running a hybrid IT organization. Use “time [...]

By |2022-05-24T14:58:05+00:00May 24th, 2022|
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How CIOs become IT thought leaders

This post "How CIOs become IT thought leaders" was first published in my “Developing IT Leaders” column on CIO.com. IT leaders have a unique vantage point. They are the only business function that sees the entire organization at a process, data, and transaction level. This cross-functional and multi-dimensional view provides IT with the opportunity to identify cross-departmental process and technology synergies, use internal technologies designed for one part of the organization in other areas with similar operational needs, and assess newly released software and hardware products for applicability across the business. Because of their cross-functional view, CIOs are well positioned to be thought leaders in the organization, becoming leading internal voices for both discipline-based innovations (i.e., those impacting a single department or job type) and functional-based innovations (i.e., more general process and technology enhancements). This puts CIOs at the intersection of business and technology—what I like to call the Golden Triangle: Understanding IT megatrends Understanding industry-specific business issues Understanding the intersection of the two Understanding IT megatrends It has been a fascinating time to watch the continued and accelerated movement in software and hardware technologies that can be employed by IT for business purpose. This includes advances in machine learning, blockchain, cyber security, cloud computing, virtual/augmented reality, edge computing, facial recognition, chatbot technology, the list goes on and on. You may look at this list and think these innovations are not new, and in truth many of them have been around for years. But as time moves forward, they get more mature, [...]

By |2022-04-05T15:43:23+00:00April 5th, 2022|
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7 key CIO influence strategies

This post was first published in my “Driving IT Productivity” column on CIO.com and has been updated from its original form. As a CIO or other IT executive, the ability to influence other C-Suite executives, vendors, clients, and others is key to both IT’s organizational impact and the CIO’s effectiveness and professional branding. When people think about influencing others, they often think about short term tactics that are sales-like in approach and appearance.  While influence techniques can certainly be used in this way and for this purpose, I would like you to widen your thinking and perspective on influence within the workplace and influence in general. Below are seven key influence strategy types that CIOs and others within IT can use alone or in combination to meet your desired outcome. 1. Strategic Influence: Strategic Influence is taking a long-term holistic approach regarding the type of influence you would like to provide at a future time.  This could be thought leadership in a business, technical or social arena.  It could also be quietly and efficiently building the credibility, connections, skills, knowledge and/or infrastructure for use at a future time. As a CIO, strategic influence can mean building IT’s leadership role in Digital Transformation, Machine Learning, Internet of Things and/or technical and/or industry-specific trends.  This long-term strategic influence not only enhances IT organization clout and value to the organization it serves, it also enhances your professional brand as the business and technical leader. 2. Tactical Influence: Tactical Influence is using specific short-term influenced-based tactics [...]

By |2022-01-02T22:05:06+00:00March 15th, 2022|
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Office Influence: The key ingredient for CIOs to get a seat at the strategy table

This post was first published in my “Driving IT Productivity” column on CIO.com and has been updated from its original form. In the 1980s there was a financial services firm named E. F. Hutton.  Their tag line was “When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen.”  I never worked at this firm.  I never invested in or through this firm.  I never knew anyone that worked there.  So why do I remember their tag line from so many years ago?  The reason is that I remember as a young man thinking “Wow, they must be really important if everyone is listening to them.”  Yes, this was just a marketing campaign, but it was also a self-fulfilling prophecy they wanted to achieve. What is your self-fulfilling prophecy?  How do you describe your role within the C-Suite and IT’s role within the organization?  If you describe yourself as the leader of the IT team and IT as an internal support function, then that’s how you and your group will be viewed. When I began my professional career, our technology group was named “Data Processing”.  The reason was that in the earlier days of computing, that’s all business computing could provide, the processing and summary of transaction data.  A decade later, as hardware increased in strength and power, software was able to become more sophisticated.  These advances provided the tools to mathematically analyze our processed data in a way that could truly provide senior management with the data to make informed decisions on company strategy and [...]

By |2022-01-02T22:05:19+00:00March 15th, 2022|
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IT productivity through project failure

This post was first published in my “Driving IT Productivity” column on CIO.com and has been updated from its original form. All too often when projects fail, people are reassigned, project managers and key team members fall from favor, and the company quickly moves forward toward other new and important business initiatives. This phenomenon, at least the “quickly moving forward” part, also often happens to a lesser degree when production systems fail, backup/restore procedures don’t work, security breaches occur, and other bad things happen.  In these cases, however, because they are ongoing activities, IT generally does an excellent job discovering the root cause of the issue and performing the needed corrective action. Production groups then take the additional step of analyzing what organization and/or procedural factors allowed the issue to occur to prevent it from happening again. This mainstay of organizational and procedural introspection should also be used more heavily when projects fail or fall short of the desired result.  If you do, it can enhance your organizational awareness as to why the project environmentally failed, unrelated to the work performed by the project members.  This increased knowledge can be captured by asking the following questions: Was the project team given the needed resources to complete the project? Was the project properly prioritized, thus having the ability to gain the needed information, approval, support and resources of those outside the team, but crucial to its success? Was the correct mix of technical and non-technical skills approved and included in the team’s original [...]

By |2022-01-02T22:05:32+00:00March 8th, 2022|
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CIO as business partner: 4 prerequisites IT leaders must master

This post was first published in my “Developing IT Leaders” column on CIO.com. IT says it.  Human Resources says it.  All other internal business silos that provide services to the customer-facing business functions say it. They want a seat at the table. They want to be seen and treated as an equal business partner and be involved in helping define the organization’s strategic vision, objectives, values, and decisions. These are the four competencies IT leaders must to demonstrate to earn their seat at the business strategy table. 1. Superior technical execution For IT, consistent, quality daily operations is job #1. Everything else is secondary. As an IT leader, if you cannot meet this requirement, then at best you’ll be disrespected and/or ignored.  At worst, you’ll be replaced. Quality IT can be divided into three generic types of services: operational, on-demand, and project-based. Operational services are the continued availability and uptime of all existing production systems, data communication, email, internet access, and all other related services. On-demand services are the help desk, service desk, and other reactive IT functions that serve those outside of IT itself. Project-based services, as the name suggests, are all planned tasks with specifically defined outcomes, such as major software upgrades, new system implementations, and process reengineering efforts. IT’s failure in any one of these three service areas, degrades the credibility of the IT leader responsible for that area as well as the CIO and the overall reputation of IT within the organization because those outside of IT don’t [...]

By |2022-03-04T14:25:10+00:00March 4th, 2022|
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Productivity linking and mapping

This post was first published in my “Driving IT Productivity” column on CIO.com and has been updated from its original form. Every department within IT is part of an overall technical ecosystem that is connected to all other departments in some way.    For example, Business Analysis provides functional specifications to the programmers. Trainers provide classes which help programmers learn their craft. Database Administrators design database schemas for use by the programmers and oversee the storage and movement of data in cooperation with Enterprise Architects and Production Operations. At a macro level, Data Security protects the computing environment, Data Communications maintains the computing backbone and the Help Desk keep all IT and user devices up and running. If any of these departments fall short in the execution of their responsibilities, then IT and the company it service could fail.  As a result of this interrelationship, productivity initiatives in any one department can positively affect other areas of IT and the company overall.  This concept is called “Productivity Linking”.  Understanding these connections allows you to strategically prioritize your productivity initiatives, based on what is best for IT as a whole.  The technique used to document and analyze these connections is called “Productivity Mapping”. The Productivity Mapping process begins by defining your primary goal, which, generally speaking, will loosely fall into three fundamental categories. General Productivity Enhancement Specific Department Productivity Enhancement Specific Process Productivity Enhancement General Productivity Enhancement is the goal of boosting the organization’s overall efficiency. This type of productivity can be attained using [...]

By |2022-01-02T22:05:50+00:00March 1st, 2022|
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3 Steps to enhance IT productivity through knowledge transfer

This post was first published in my “Driving IT Productivity” column on CIO.com and has been updated from its original form. Like data, corporate knowledge is created, stored, distributed and consumed.  Unlike data, however, it can also be easily lost. This lost knowledge is caused by multiple factors, including: Retiring IT staff Employee attrition Temporary contractors moving on to other assignments Vendors completing their software development engagement and moving on to new clients Employees with technical skills moving into non-technical roles, causing their technical ability to diminish Preventing knowledge loss within IT has three primary steps; Creation, Retention and Distribution. Knowledge creation comes from two primarily sources, mental and physical. Mental knowledge is generated via ongoing employee experiences, formal/informal training, innovation-related activities and through the implementation of new software, processes, and methodologies.  Physical knowledge are the artifacts created by employees as part of their jobs.  These include internally-built software, written documents, and formalized internal procedures. Physical knowledge has the potential to be used by the company long after the employee or contractor has left the scene. The retention of mental knowledge, however, is much more elusive. The issue with this mental knowledge, often referred to as “corporate knowledge”, is that it’s embodied in people.  As a result, it can easily fall prey to human frailties, employee career choices and non-work related decision criteria. This raises the question of how to retain this corporate knowledge when employees, contractors, vendors and others exit the corporate nest. The following activities retain human-based knowledge. Implementation of [...]

By |2022-01-02T22:06:01+00:00February 22nd, 2022|
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Efficiency versus effectiveness

This post was first published in my “Driving IT Productivity” column on CIO.com and has been updated from its original form. A few years ago I had the pleasure of speaking with Joseph Raynus about the difference of being “efficient” and being “effective” and its effect on IT productivity and business value.  His thoughts are still very relevant to IT organizations today.  He is the founder of ShareDynamics, a speaker, an author and an expert in business process management and strategic program/project planning. Mr. Raynus said that generally speaking, IT organizations are efficient regarding the ongoing execution of defined production processes and, if solid methodologies are in place, in the definition, approval and follow-through of project related activities.  The question is “Are these technical endeavors effective in their ability to maximize the value of IT to the business?”. He went on the say that IT process drives efficiency, but IT strategy and alignment with corporate goals drives effectiveness.  He went on to say that there are four philosophies IT leadership should consider when trying to maximize their organizational effectiveness. Keep up to date on changing corporate objectives and business conditions: Given the continually increasing speed of business decision making and industry movement, IT executives and staff must continually ensure that the goals they are reaching for have not changed during the project execution phase.  The risk is that an efficiently executed project may not be deemed as effective if it helps attain a goal that is no longer in place. Timeliness is [...]

By |2022-01-02T22:06:11+00:00February 15th, 2022|
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