Why is IT often seen as the bottleneck of an organization?
CIO in Finance (non-banking), 51 - 200 employees
I kind of struggle with this because you'll never make everybody happy, no matter what department you're in. There's always a compromise. But I also look at what type of leader is in that role. There are some leaders that say, "I was head of infrastructure and now that I'm running the team, these are my KPIs." That’s different from a business leader who’s very engaged with the business and understands a profit and loss statement (P&L). The attitude could be either, “Sorry, this isn't how we do things with our KPIs,” or “Let's do a trade. I'll backlog some of your stuff, but I’ll also push some stuff through which will also affect other people.” That sets the expectation. We're all blockers and dependencies to somebody with any project that goes on, so the real chasm between good leaders and great leaders is the setting of expectations.
CIO, 5,001 - 10,000 employees
I don't think it's unique to IT. I hear that HR is a bottleneck and finance is a bottleneck. It's almost any G&A function where the CFO is incented to constrain resources and what's traditionally considered G&A, because that's what shareholders expect. It's a smaller pie than there is demand, so any of those functions can be perceived as the bottleneck. I used to think it was maybe just us. And I would say that we are less of a bottleneck today because the business is capable of doing so much more on its own with the way technology has evolved. And at some level, now we get to be the hero when they completely screw it up and realize that you can come fix it. They actually want your help. Before, they didn't want your help. But then you will become the bottleneck again because you weren't resourced to make that fix on their timeline. It's a constant ebb and flow.
CIO in Energy and Utilities, 11 - 50 employees
It is a fact that most companies take technology decisions assuming its IT department can do almost anything.Also, in any decision-making meeting, the blame is on the one missing, usually IT.
IT is a natural bottleneck because it is needed by everyone, formally and in shadow mode.
Having well-known service practices and promoting organizational culture (maturity) is a great help to overcome the "bottleneck" stigma and justify more resources to keep up the service level agreements.
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I love that you’ve made a point of naming IT differently. I think that's an important part of the story. But in the end, we all have a responsibility—to ourselves and to the organization—to be clear on how we see IT contributing to the organization, and not just take the job because it's got the CIO name on it.