When you boil it down, a CIO’s job is fundamentally about making technology work for the business. At the heart of this charter is making sure suppliers and the organization’s own development teams deliver what the business needs.These two goals are achieved by very different means. Getting what you need from vendors starts with picking the right ones in the first place. While the due diligence process may seem too costly and time-consuming to some IT executives, the consequences of not fully vetting key vendors before you commit to their products can cripple your operations and cost a whole lot more?including your job. This up-front assessment and the subsequent contract you negotiate are insurance against getting left in the lurch. Still, some people simply don’t believe in insurance. And CIOs who have come up through technology may not have a lot of patience for the process?until that first major failure. Before that day comes, read “Do Diligence,” by Senior Writer Meridith Levinson (beginning on Page 64), and learn why it’s so important to scrutinize your vendors?and how to do it right. Delivering on internal projects requires a completely different set of competencies and activities. It’s all about project management and development practices, and in the 35 years people have been developing software systems, things haven’t improved much. That has to do in part with the debate over whether programming is art or science and the attempts to apply strict engineering disciplines to software development (it doesn’t work). It has to do with the fact that many previous methodologies, smart as they are, are difficult to carry out. What’s needed?and what has arrived?is a simpler approach based on the same fundamentals we’ve know about since the late ’60s but have somehow been unable to live up to. It’s called Agile Development, and it and its many cousins cut to the chase and offer prescriptions that work if you work them?sort of a 12-step program (well, it’s actually six) for coding your way to a better future. Senior Writer Scott Berinato tells you what it’s all about in “The Secret to Software Success,” beginning on Page 76.Sure, there’s more to the CIO’s job than getting what you need from vendors and delivering projects to spec on time and within budget, but without those two fundamentals the rest of it doesn’t really matter a whole lot. Related content BrandPost The future of trust—no more playing catch up Broadcom: 2023 Tech Trends That Transform IT By Eric Chien, Director of Security Response, Symantec Enterprise Division, Broadcom Mar 31, 2023 5 mins Security BrandPost TCS gives Blackhawk Network an edge with Microsoft Cloud In this case study, Blackhawk Network’s Cara Renfroe joins Tata Consultancy Services’ Rakesh Kumar and Microsoft’s Nilendu Pattanaik to explain how TCS transformed the gift card company’s customer engagement and global operati By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 31, 2023 1 min Financial Services Industry Cloud Computing IT Leadership BrandPost How TCS pioneered the ‘borderless workspace’ with Microsoft 365 Microsoft’s modern workplace solution proved a perfect fit for improving productivity and collaboration, while maintaining security of systems and data. By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 31, 2023 1 min Financial Services Industry Microsoft Cloud Computing BrandPost Supply chain decarbonization: The missing link to net zero By improving the quality of global supply chain data, enterprises can better measure their true carbon footprint and make progress toward a net-zero business ecosystem. By Tata Consultancy Services Mar 31, 2023 2 mins Retail Industry Supply Chain Green IT Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe