What is the single most crucial action that you believe a CIO should take during their first 90 days in a new role?
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My 2 cents here, there are more than one crucial action as a CIO to address, but let me put this model to your consideration:
a) Reality => Getting to know the business' priorities and the digital leadership style from the board
b) Employee Experience=> Get to know your team, at least to remember their name and positions in order to identify key players
c) IT Resources=> Review your hdw and application inventory, identify your critical applications, databases and hdw resources
d) Data=> Make a simple analytical model from the last 6 months of help desk ticketing system data to identify your pain points
Review all technology related policies, disaster recovery plan and cybersecurity plan(s).
Read this article from organization structure expert Dean Meyer and follow it! I have found it to be outstanding advice to follow in my career. https://ndma.com/resource/ndm18871.htm
Listen and ask a lot of questions with everyone you meet with.
Make the time to have genuine conversations with people all across the organisation from bottom to top. Knowing you can't of course always talk to everyone, but establishing communication and listening for ideas and insights is a huge opportunity as you walk into a new role. Keeping the trust of what you pick up - because you will pick things up - is then absolutely critical. Listen, think about what you've learned, and then take the time to formulate actions. After 90 days, you own it.