As the Role of the Cio Has Changed over Time Transcending Through Three Major Technical Eras – Mainframe, Distributed Era to the Web-Based Era – What Are the Required Skills of Today’s Cio? Should the Individual Come

Mainframe Era:

Skills - As this was a highly technical environment, I believe that the skillsets should match as a qualification. The CIO or technical leader during this period should have highly technical skills over business, strategy, or leadership skills.

Background - As the environment is highly technical, it makes the most sense to have someone come from a technical background. Business leadership is not necessarily a strong point as technology leadership would be more focused on the overly complex and newly evolving part of the business.

Distributed Era:

Skills - Here, we see a move out of being as technical of an environment as the mainframe era, but some technical know how is required, so knowledge dealing with the systems and their capabilities. However, during this time frame, there is a much greater ability to find individuals trained in the technical aspects of managing the systems, so leadership is very important.

Background - A mixed background, perhaps with both business management or leadership along with some background in technical aspects is valuable to know the extent at which technology can help accomplish business objectives.

Web-Based Era:

Skills - Negotiating skills can go a long ways, as the organization will likely be dealing with a handful of vendors providing for different needs of the business. The number of back office systems will be low in number and the services will likely be provided using servers outside the organization in the cloud. As such, interfaces to these systems make management easy, tending to focus the consideration of how to make the system work for the company, over how to make them work generally.

Background - Here, little technical know how is required. Business leadership and management is extremely important. I believe that during this time frame, that both management and technical knowledge required to use these systems is reduced as a requirement and as such, being able to...