An indispensable guide showing IT leaders the way to balance the needs of innovation and exploration with exploitation and operational reliability Many books on modern IT leadership focus solely on supporting innovation and disruption. In practice these must be balanced with the need to support waste reduction in existing processes and capabilities while keeping the foundation operational, secure, compliant with regulations, and cost effective. In The Accidental CIO, veteran software developer-turned-executive Scott Millett delivers an essential playbook to becoming an impactful, strategic leader at any stage of your IT leadership journey from your earliest aspirations to long time incumbents in director and C-suite roles. You'll find a wealth of hands-on advice for tackling the many challenges and paradoxes that face technology leaders, from creating an aligned IT strategy, defining a target architecture, designing a balanced operating model, and leading teams and executing strategy. After the foreword from Simon Wardley, The Accidental CIO will help you: * Understand problem contexts you will face using the Cynefin decision making framework, and how the philosophies of agile, lean and design thinking can help manage them. * Design an adaptive and strategically aligned operating model by applying the appropriate ways of working and governance approaches depending on each unique problem context. * Organize a department using a blend of holacratic and hierarchical principles, and leveraging modern approaches such as Team Topology and Socio-technical patterns. * Develop and deploy an effective and aligned IT Strategy using Wardley mapping based on a deep knowledge of your business architecture. With this knowledge you'll be ready to create an empowered IT organization focused on solving customer problems and generating enterprise value. You'll understand the science behind what motivates teams and changes behavior. And you'll show your skills as a business leader thinking beyond IT outputs to impactful business outcomes.

Make the jump from a developer or IT admin to an effective, inspiring tech leader As you move up through the tech ranks, the transition to leadership is notoriously challenging. Many chief information officers (CIO) or chief technology officers (CTO) are short-lived in that role, as they discover that being a programmer or tech administrator is vastly different from being an IT leader. The Accidental CIO will show you how to become an effective, strategic leader--whether you already inhabit that leadership role or are eyeing the C-suite for your professional future. In this book, you'll find a wealth of practical advice for tackling the challenges new technical leaders face, from producing a strategy to creating and leading a department to execute it. Learn how to communicate what you already understand--the power of modern technology to transform business. This is your guide to contributing to business strategy and success, as well as inspiring others to bring your vision to life * Understand why the the principles and values of lean, agile and design thinking are vital for managing in today's complex business environment * Learn how to take a holistic approach to analysis by utilising systems thinking to make impactful changes * Capture your businesses anatomy and create and communicate an IT strategy that clearly contributes to business success * Design an IT operating model that is focused on generating value by ensuring that all components are adaptable and designed around delivering business outcomes * Deploy your strategy and execute on the IT vision to bridge the business canapés required to win From understanding the core principles of modern management and leadership, to presenting a strategic vision to the board, to building a team and implementing your plan, this book supports your new C-level role with practical advice and frameworks for the challenges that lay ahead.