A day in the life of Myron Hrycyk, Severn Trent Water CIO

Morning: I live in Thame, a market town near to Oxford, and travel to my office in Birmingham near the airport most days.  I use the drive for thinking time.

I’m based at our head office however IS is based in two other dedicated buildings, one is about five miles away near the NEC the other is about 10 miles away in the opposite direction. With the exception of the IS desk side support people assigned to the Head Office I’m the only IS person in the building. I work in a totally open-plan office alongside my executive colleagues and the CEO, who I report in to. The open plan nature of the offices allows for formal and informal communications. There is a tangible team feel about the place.

The Working Day:I arrive between 8.30 and 9.00 and usually go straight into the schedule for the day.

A typical day would include informal conversations with other Execs about IS service, projects, business issues as well as a formal Exec meeting e.g Operational Performance. I meet regularly with my IS senior management team so a typical day would include a 1:1 meeting of this sort. I’m also the Exec Sponsor of our SAP programme. SAP absorbs a great deal of time so my day will include at least one session covering a SAP programme topic/issue.

I’m keen to keep moving IS and our business forward so sometime during a typical day I’ll have either a discussion with my CTO on strategy or a key supplier on technology opportunities.

Emails stack up but my PA Lorraine, helps clear out low priority ones.  I probably spend about 60 minutes each day addressing high-priority emails.

I travel around our region and I carve out time to get to the two IS sites to meet with my teams.  A typical day would see me travelling to one of these sites for a key project meeting

Lunch is taken on the go – not necessarily a good thing. The Evening: I work late and get home between 7.30 and 8.00pm. Occasionally I meet with suppliers in the evening. I try to keep this to a minimum so I get some time with my wife and family during the week.

I really enjoy my work. I don’t think I or anyone would keep this pace up if they didnít enjoy their work.

Weekends:I try to keep weekends free to spend with the family.