Thinking Like A CIO: "The Art and Science of Managing Complexity"

One of my great teachers and mentors has been Donald Lessard, Epoch Foundation Professor of International Management and former Deputy Dean at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Like most students we don't fully appreciate the lessons of our masters until much later. During my tenure as CIO at MIT Sloan I looked forward to our regular meetings. We conducted daily business but I also profited immensely from our wide-ranging discussions, which often assumed the style of Oxford-style tutorials.

A key lesson I distilled from Lessard: "The essence of management is knowing how to manage complexity."

Indeed the larger the system, project or organization the greater the complexity and corresponding risk. (Complexity and risk are flip sides of the same coin.)

Lessard once drew a diagram on his chalkboard and it has stayed with me all these years:

The diagram represents for me a basic framework for navigating IT. The three axes of complexity (technical, stakeholder, business) define the interactive layers of choice, decision, and action.

In a series of postings under "Thinking Like A CIO", I will use Lessard's framework as the starting point for analyzing some key issues and challenges in IT management. I will also incorporate interviews, podcasts, and case studies with "master CIOs" to see how they put into practice the art and science of managing complexity.

Stay tuned.