Covid-19’s IT Lessons | Using Earnings Calls To Train Tech Teams | KeyBank CIO’s Bold Bot Bet | And More

Plus: Top 10 Technology Books Of 2020

Hi there, and welcome to the latest issue of the Forbes CIO newsletter.

While we’re still in the midst of the pandemic, it might seem premature to start thinking about the lessons that IT teams should take away from coping with its impact. But some pretty big ones are already clear and Mark Settle, a Forbes CIO Network contributor and the former CIO of identity and access management company Okta, lays them out clearly in a recent post.

The first is the power of prioritization. The need to rethink business-as-usual strategies practically overnight was an incredibly powerful forcing function. IT teams got way more done in a very short span of time because the crisis highlighted must-dos versus might-like-to-dos on task lists. Saying “no” to non-essential requests from business units also became easier.

Another lesson is that the push for perfection that often characterizes IT planning can be counterproductive. Worried about criticism from other parts of businesses, tech teams often spend too much time trying to refine every single detail of project plans. The pandemic has shown clearly that perfectionism has a price in terms of lost speed and agility. 

Settle cites the CEO of a large company who recalled that an entire Microsoft Teams implementation had been completed in just two weeks during the crisis. Although there were a few bumps in the process, he is already wondering out loud whether other IT projects could be completed faster too.

A third lesson is the primacy of people. In order to maintain morale and monitor progress, many CIOs held more meetings—virtual ones, of course—and the nature of video conferences from home helped staff see bosses in a new, more informal light. Even when the pandemic finally subsides, expectations for more frequent briefings and check-ins with leadership won’t. 

Bonus comment: It would be remiss of me not to note that this has been a watershed week in U.S. politics, with the inauguration of President Joe Biden. Here’s a link to a story I wrote late last year that highlighted some of the potential implications of a Biden administration for CIOs.

Thanks for reading and please send me your tips, thoughts, questions and ideas for future issues. You can also follow me on Twitter and on LinkedIn. And if you enjoy reading the newsletter please recommend it to others who may find it useful.

Technology & Innovation

Enterprise tech: Intel got a new boss in the shape of VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger. Now VMware, which has appointed an interim leader, is looking for someone to fill Gelsinger’s role permanently just as its business model is being challenged by the rise of containers and Kubernetes. Speculation is rife that Dell, which owns VMware, could spin off the company.

Consumer tech: Here’s a helpful checklist of key trends from this year’s virtual Consumer Electronics Show. They include tech for dealing with Covid-19’s impact, including smart face masks and antimicrobial backpacks, as well as advances in phones and other devices that capitalize on the rollout of 5G connectivity.

Leadership & Strategy

Digital transformation: A new book by Jeff Lawson, the CEO of Twilio, a $61 billion market cap cloud communications platform, argues that leaders should do more to harness the creative input of developers as part of transformation strategies, rather than just tasking them with churning out code.

Privacy: After WhatsApp announced that it was changing its privacy policy, hordes of users abandoned the platform for other services such as Signal and Telegram. The shift is a stark reminder to WhatsApp’s owner, Facebook, and others that how personal data is handled matters a great deal to customers.

Talent & Careers

Executive hiring: A startup called The Org shows what companies’ organization charts look like. Now it wants to be an alternative to LinkedIn for job-hunting executives. Earlier this week, the company announced its new Jobs platform, which allows employers to list open roles within their public org charts and gives job seekers the ability to see who their future coworkers might be and how they would fit into the company.

Diversity and inclusion: CIOs and other executives have a responsibility to attract and hire diverse talent, which means eliminating unconscious bias from the hiring process. Using ethical AI in interviews and assessments can help ensure job candidates are judged solely on their merits. Here are some key ways that organizations can use AI to remove bias from hiring practices.

"We were looking at hiring [staff] at a pace that just wouldn’t have been feasible."

Dominic Cugini

Divisional CIO and senior director for service digitization, KeyBank

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