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IT Metrics - The power of a Successful People Management

If we compare the different management activities the CIO has to deal with while driving a complex agenda, there is undoubtedly one that overpasses most of the others in terms of complexity, criticality and value added for our organisations; we are talking about talent management.


People management is an overly wide definition when we as C-level managers are looking at the continuous improvement of key development factors but also about their main core engine, people motivation through continuous professional achievements.

Too many organizations, multinational or small businesses, have forgotten the importance of a proper management career through a smart talent management. Most of the young people that are currently hired by a company will be dealing with a clear lack of visibility regarding what they can expect from their organizations, what challenges they have to accomplish in order to go to the next level, which are the main targets the company is really expecting to be fulfill, etc. All this will drive people towards a self-management of their own career path without any business guidelines or medium/long target setting. At the end this will end-up creating a significant gap in both sides as in too many occasions there will be a clear mismatch between each other expectations, the business and their employees.



To replace a medium-long term career plan and the related talent management activities by a short-term target evaluation (Yearly performance review) is clearly a strategic mistake, which might jeopardize any business organization, specially the ones that are investing on a continuous solutions innovation path.

That’s why in my opinion we have to take a conscious decision moving towards to a more structured way to manage IT people careers while at the same time we grow as a team, internally comparing ourselves with our peer C-level managers and externally in a continuous benchmarking exercise with other IT/IS organizations. As such there are four main drivers for a successful talent management activity that I would like to highlight hereafter. Starting from the way we hire new people by doing a proper match between what we really need and what each individual can bring to our organizations (not only in a short window time-frame but looking also at medium-long term organization requirements), going through the investment we have to do developing a professional career framework, plus the effort that will be required to build a continuous innovation mindset within our organization. Last but certainly not the least we have to manage our agendas for a proper coaching exercise with the ones that has been demonstrating either, an special commitment / dedication with regards the agreed agenda, commonly named as Sustainable high performance, or with the few others that might be considered as High flyers – top performance.  A smart IT/IS organization has to combine both types of professional stiles for a long-term successful business support and added value activities.    

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