The biggest threat I see is an old one, that IT relegates itself to the “glass house” and is not demonstrating how it executes on the companies strategic and tactical imperatives and doesn’t effectively demonstrate its value. It travels under the guise of “alignment” and other buzzwords, but in effect is acting like a shared service versus providing solutions to problems.

The key sign of this failing as I’ve seen it is talking too much about tools in IT; several mentions of “cloud computing” appeared just in this conversation. Imagine if your roof is leaking and flooding your house, and you call a carpenter who keeps talking about the “HammerMeister 4000″ as a response to every question rather than “I can fix this quickly and cost-effectively. Here’s the price, write the check then sit back and I’ll solve your problems without a fuss.”

One of the biggest misconceptions I have seen with the idea of “work/life balance” is that someone else is going to take care of it for you, be it someone in HR, your management, or a government entity. Work/life balance is something personal that we each need to take accountability for. It is in our employer’s interest to get maximum productivity from each of us, which conflicts directly with the whole idea of balancing one’s life with one’s work. As soon as you stop trying to outsource these decisions and take personal responsibility for deciding what portion of your life to allocate towards work, and which towards life, you will never achieve the balance that’s right for you. Each of us after all has only one life; how we chose to divide that between work and personal time is up to us.

I was recently asked if I thought the CIO role would disappear from most companies. My response:

In companies where the CIO is the “top techie” who considers their primary responsibility to be keeping the little green lights in the data center blinking we will see the CIO role disappear. IT is not as mysterious as it once was, and there is no longer the need for a C-level title for pure technology management.

If the CIO can evolve, and help the CEO execute his or her strategic vision then it will continue to exist. Just as the CFO doesn’t just shuffle debits and credits, but rather figures out how to best pay for the CEO’s strategy, the CIO needs to figure out what tools and emerging technologies will facilitate the business objectives of the company.

I would guess that around 20% of CIOs do this very well. They’re also the CIOs that are slated to move into a COO and potentially CEO role. A good “litmus test” is if you ask the CEO if he or she would consider letting the CIO take their position. If they laugh you out of the room, then the CIO is likely more oriented towards the tech management role.