Innovation is the wellspring of excellence and excellence is
the arrowhead of quality. Organization excellence, the reward of organizational
commitment to total quality is the hallmark of the most innovative, productive
model organizations across industry verticals from not-for-profit entities
(including government agencies, aid organizations, public institutions such as
schools, medical facilities and research organizations) to for-profit
organizations or commercial entities.
For more than a century, technology, particularly information
related technology has provided the fuel that helped drive innovation across
various organizations from improvements in vote-counting to medical advances
and of course to the many innovations in pedagogy and research. Technology has
simplified and expanded the reach of admissions offices and has served as the critical
glue for retention, early assessment, creativity in the classroom and a key
tool for many other functions in the education space.
The interconnection between technology, quality, excellence
and innovation is leading many organizations to rethink their information technology
strategy and operation into an innovation generating strategy. While
organizations transitioned into a role of chief information officer at the
beginning of this century; where the chief information officer’s role was the
oversight of technology deployment enterprise-wide and the assurance that such
deployments are in alignment with organization’s mission, an increasing number
of chief information officers are being tasked with an innovation portfolio in
recognition of the outsized contribution technology could make in corporate
agility and innovation.
Innovation varies across organization (intra or inter), but
increasingly, leading organizations are concluding that innovation often stems
from or can be contributed to by the alignment of technology with corporate
mission. Many organizations, including the State of Maryland are beginning to
carve out a innovation roles and title such as Chief Innovation Officer,
Directory of Technology and Innovation, Chief Medical Innovation Officer,
Director of Corporate Performance and Innovation etc. But the title in itself
does not define the role, rather it is a recognition of a the need to have a
corporate arrowhead for innovation. Indeed, the role of a chief innovation
officer needs to be defined and clarified, as that of the chief information
officer was in the late 1990s and the Chief Information Security Officer was in
the mid- 2000. Here is a description of what the role of chief innovation
officer is in an organization.
Like all other executive positions, a chief innovation
officer is an agent of the chief executive officer whose job is to help execute
the vision of the CEO. In an increasingly networked, global and competitive
world, a chief innovation officer’s role would be to help identify resources,
tools and opportunities to maintain the sustainability of the organization.
This process will often lead from the use of technology to enhance
capabilities, optimization of resources and the delivery of services which customers
would always be willing to pay for (in whatever the industry’s currency is) and
for which customers would always be glad to pay for.
Since innovation has two critical parts, quality (excellence)
and technology; a functional chief innovation officer will have a portfolio
that crosses both segments. In an ideal situation, a chief innovation officer
will have the reporting of a chief technology officer, a chief quality officer,
and perhaps a chief risk officer (whose function would include all types of
risks). Such structure will ensure that quality programs, which can often
benefit from technology, are fully coordinated with technology programs and
that all these are appropriately appraised for the risks and opportunities they
provide.
Figure 1 The New CIO - Innovation, Technology,
Management
Mature organizations usually have chief operations officers
(although the role of COO is imbued in that of the CEO/President in smaller
organizations) to whom chief information officer and a chief quality officers
(or in some organizations, an ombudsman) report. With the increasing adoption
of corporate quality programs such as Six Sigma and Lean, some organizations
have even created a role for chief performance officers, but such role mirrors
the chief quality officer. Indeed, some will argue that performance and quality
are not synonymous, but that is a function of perspective. If performance is
defined in terms of quality, then the two are indeed synonymous. Today, there
is a need to fundamentally align corporate information technology, quality and
performance into a forward-looking, capacity-optimizing and capability-enhancing
paradigm for organizational innovation. An engine of corporate sustainability,
value creation and growth.
Thus, a chief innovation officer (the new CIO) will provide
an organization with appropriate leadership to channel its resources optimally
so as to maintain and or retain a leadership role in concert with its vision.
It is a role that focuses on value creation for the enterprise (yes, that is
the role of all members of the organization, but innovation is truly the art of
value creation). Value is what consumers demand from products and services, it
is what consumers consider quality, it what they reward. Innovation is the
engine of value creation. So a “new CIO” is an organization’s chief value
creator.
For a university, a chief innovation officer with direct
reports to the President will, depending on resources and size of the university,
have a technology and quality portfolio and can discharge such directly or via
deputies. In a small or medium sized university, or in cases with minimal staff,
the portfolios are better imbued in a single individual.
The technology role will include coordination and alignment
of all technology resources to assure optimal use of investments, security of
data and information, and enhancement of research and pedagogy. The quality
role will include helping entities within the university optimize their
processes, leaning out wastes and measuring productivity to align overall
University resources with University mission.
The expectation is total quality and an endemic proliferation
of a culture of excellence. The
structure is presented in fig. 1
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