Employ multiple communication levels
Croswell Chambers, CIO and vice president of Lexmark, said he focuses his communication on three levels of personnel worldwide at Lexmark: the business area, the general employee population, and IT employees.
The business area includes C-level personnel and other high-ranking Lexmark employees who gather in monthly meetings. During these meetings, they receive updates on operations and discuss upcoming initiatives and overall strategy. These monthly meetings are augmented with quarterly staff meetings with division executives. There also are bimonthly board meetings and regular IT planning meetings.
The general employee population receives regular corporate newsletters, which include at least two articles from the IT department. One recent topic was upcoming broadband connectivity service the IT department implemented. Chambers said he is careful to include any -key significant win that we had in IT, something which provided real value to the company." Gathering resources for these articles is as simple as getting the right people within IT who know what's going on and getting together with the folks who can put it into words for corporate communications, Chambers said.
Chambers also sponsors and participates in brown bag and other open meetings. -It's an opportunity for me to present what IT is doing for them, but it's also a chance for them to tell me what they would like from IT." In addition, Chambers encourages quality circle meetings between IT personnel and administrative assistants, engineers, sales support, and other -pockets of users who use IT slightly differently from the rest of the population," he said. -We try to make sure we know what their needs are." The general Lexmark employee also can receive news from and about IT via special events or awareness meetings. One recent topic was password security.
To communicate directly with his IT employees, Chambers participates in monthly roundtable gatherings. These face-to-face meetings are tough to set up within a worldwide company like Lexmark, so IT employees are randomly selected for these open topic meetings. -Whatever they want to talk about," Chambers said. -It's an opportunity for me to listen to them speak candidly about their ideas and concerns."
Chambers cautioned that his efforts to communicate about IT with the rest of the company isn't stopping there. His department is looking at implementing a value-added scorecard to more closely align the department with the company's key business strategies, initiatives, and objectives. If all goes as planned, this new system will be implemented in the next year. -We're always looking at news ways to better the company," he said.
Take advantage of technology
BMC Software is a US$1.3 billion company used by 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies to help manage their enterprise systems, applications, and databases. For a company that size, internal communication is crucial, and the IT department is not excluded.
With an eye toward fostering effective executive communication, BMC executives formed the Business Optimization Leadership Team (BOLT), a small group of top executives, including Jay Gardner, CIO. The group meets regularly to decide the direction of BMC's business and IT services. -BMC developed this consortium, as they know how difficult it is for executives to make time for meetings and think that if executives have a dedicated team framework, they will be able to share ideas and reach several of their peers in one sitting," said a BMC press release describing BOLT.
In addition, these executives communicate using the latest technology: Blackberries, wireless e-mail, and cell phone. Through these technologies, each member of the executive team has access to the Dashboard, an application that tracks the key performance indicators within the company. Indicators track sales order revenue, expenses, customer support activity, and employee attrition.
Appoint IT points of contact
Teradata is a US$1 billion division of NCR and a leader in data warehousing. CIO Steven Dippold said he pairs a service program director with appropriate representatives in other departments, such as vice president of sales or the head of marketing. The service program director acts as that person's point of contact into the IT department.
Meanwhile, Dippold conducts a variety of meetings. The steering committee, made up of vice presidential-level personnel and their staff, meet with senior program directors and other IT department personnel. Topics discussed during these two-hour sessions include evaluation and review of the status of IT initiatives, product status, future operations, and new projects and goals.
Dippold also encourages the periodic meeting of cross-steering committees, as well as teams within IT. For instance, the leadership team, business units, and other interdepartmental teams will discuss a variety of targeted topics, including budgets, IT initiatives, goals, long-range plans, and other departmental strategies. Other meetings are less formal but just as important, Dippold said. He participates in and sponsors Web and face-to-face forums, roundtable discussions, brown bag sessions, and other gatherings. -These usually focus on horizontal services," he said.
Dippold's strategy evolved during his four years as Teradata's CIO. -We had a completely centralised IT department four years ago," he explained. -At times, it wasn't as easy as it could be to recognize problems to be solved in IT." The system of pairing key company personnel with IT service program directors, along with the other meetings, developed over time, and the system continues to evolve, he said.
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