First Impressions

Although new CIOs feel pressured to accomplish big things quickly, the best thing you can do when it comes to big moves is to take your time

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SIDEBAR: Getting Organized at the New Job

CIOs share tips for the first 90 days and beyond

Develop a strategic plan: Ron Kifer, group vice president and CIO at Applied Materials, created a high-level 90-day strategic plan before his first day on the job. Within his first 30 days, he incorporated specific pain points of the company, the type of CIO leader required and the mandate of the executive team. The plan laid out steps to support the mandate and position IT as an innovation leader. (To download Kifer's initial 90-day plan, go to www.cio.com/inprint.)

Track relationships: Vicki Petit, vice president of information services at furniture manufacturer KI, created an Excel spreadsheet to track hours spent per month on building relationships in five areas: vendors, cross-functional meetings, individual business leaders, professional associations and external peers. She sets yearly goals in each area and reports results to her boss monthly.

Get a coach: Michael Abbene, CIO at Arch Coal, used a coach (a former CIO from a different company) to offer guidance during his first 90 days. They had weekly phone discussions and regularly met face-to-face. The relationship continues today — 18 months after he became CIO.

SIDEBAR: Top 10 Priorities of a CIO's Success

CIOs ranked the importance of 30 activities to a CIO's success in the first three months of the job. These were the top 10

Understand the corporate strategy and assess how well the department you have inherited is aligned with that strategy.
Communicate your own goals and leadership style to your team.
Identify key success factors for IT from the perspective of all business unit and function heads.
Structure your days and weeks so that you have time to learn, focus and create short-term value while preparing a long-term plan.
Work with each group within your department to get a feel for team dynamics and individual team members.
Establish interpersonal relationships with influential people and lay the groundwork for coalitions.
Understand the history and current state of the relationship between the IT department and each business unit or corporate function.
Target early wins that matter to your boss.
Identify the informal networks in the organization (Who has the ear of the boss? Whom do frontline employees really trust and follow?).
Negotiate the terms for success withyour boss.

Source: Poll of 67 CIO respondents, published in "A Running Start: Success in Your First 90 Days on the Job", CIO Executive Council, December 2006.