The analyst said "resuscitating" old IT systems will become costly as businesses move towards a service-orientated architecture.
John Mahoney, chief of IT management research for Gartner, said: "Each time you resuscitate, you're putting it on life support and it becomes more expensive. There are lots of elderly systems around that should have died a long time ago. Growing complexity is going to be the enemy of agility."
Mahoney's comments are part of Gartner's top 10 CIO resolutions for 2006. The analyst is also advising IT heads to spend more time educating the business about "the second internet revolution" and to start planning for long-term goals, especially in skills training.
Mahoney added: "Some people will be in high demand but the real difficulty will be finding people for business-facing roles.
"You want to hand pick a few people in IT and a few from business and bring them into IT. If you are a CIO thinking about a broader role or moving to another company, think about developing lieutenants."
Although none of the analyst's tips would come as rocket science for most CIOs -- Gartner, for example, recommends building stronger relationships with CFOs and CEOs -- it also said they should look at some of the new technologies including web applications such as Flickr.com, Google Earth, Numsum.com, Writely.com or an in-house pilot of a consumer technology such as work-from-home over broadband or PodCasting company communications.
ZDNet UK's Graeme Wearden reported from London. For more coverage from ZDNet UK, click here.
