Stories by Minda Zetlin

Some CIOs outlast the typical five-year tenure by avoiding classic blunders, winning the CEO's confidence and enjoying a dash of good luck.

Sometimes not adopting a hot new technology is the wisest business decision a CFO can make

IT leaders must learn to tell whether a new technology will transform their businesses -- or just become the next boondoggle. Four CIOs offer their perspectives.

Here are four signs of a successful CIO-CMO partnership

Hint: They want it done fast, and vendors are knocking on their door. Help them resist the temptations.

There's a natural tension between IT and marketing. But these days the CIO and CMO need to collaborate and focus on what's best for the customer.

About four years ago, Medidata Solutions decided to switch from its traditional "waterfall" method of software development to an agile methodology. Medidata provides clinical testing solutions in a software-as-a-service model. "We made the change for all the usual reasons," says Andrew Newbigging, senior vice president of research and development. "We wanted to be more responsive to customer needs." At the same time, Medidata's IT leaders explored the possibility of outsourcing some of the company's software development. Though that might have made sense in the traditional waterfall world, they concluded that it was the wrong way to do agile.

In July 2005, a series of suicide bomb attacks in London's transit system killed 56 people and threw the city into a state of confusion. The U.S.-based CEO of a multinational financial company with offices in London posed what to him seemed a simple and essential question: "Are all our people OK?"