Background
Steve Smith’s background includes a wide variety of professional Information Technology roles.
This means Steve can make your staff more self-sufficient and knowledgeable about the various areas within your enterprise organization.
This means Steve can make your staff more self-sufficient and knowledgeable about the various areas within your enterprise organization.
Interim CIO
Steve's enterprise management experience ranges from start-up information technology teams to Fortune 100 teams of more than 600 employee's and budgets to $160 million. Steve's presents an innovative Interim CIO solution to organizations with a CIO vacancy or just needing help with a rapidly growing organization. As an interim CIO, Steve will step into the gap, assess both the current situation and desired end-state, collaborate with business leaders to develop an IT Strategic Plan, participate in the CIO search, and execute the transition plan.
Many organizations need temporary/part-time IT executive leadership or professional IT management services for special projects. Steve can provide your company with affordable CIO Services and provide access to available professionals who have years of experience as CIO's and senior IT Management in numerous markets, offering the following services:
Many organizations need temporary/part-time IT executive leadership or professional IT management services for special projects. Steve can provide your company with affordable CIO Services and provide access to available professionals who have years of experience as CIO's and senior IT Management in numerous markets, offering the following services:
- Managing Information Technology staff, vendors, contracts, budgets and IT assets.
- Implementing a custom IT Governance policy for your organization.
- Customizing IT processes, standards, methodologies, plans, strategies, sourcing and procurement policies.
- Providing industry-specific knowledge for your Information Technology needs.
- Guiding the executive search for the ‘perfect fit’ for your IT organization
- Providing application-specific knowledge (e.g., financials, HR, CRM, ERP, work flow management, data warehouse and mining).
- Aligning people, process and technology with reach your organization’s business objectives.
IT Governance
The CIO role is changing as more enterprises move towards a "Value Added" role for the Information Technology function. In today’s world , we can no longer afford to have an IT Department that the company feels is a fiscal “Black Hole”; IT must become a partner in all aspects to do its part to drive revenue and keep expenses in check.
For many companies, the strategic application of Information Technology (IT) is a matter of survival or extinction. Despite the significant role IT plays in business, most boards of directors (boards) remain largely in the dark when it comes to IT strategy and governance. However, according to McCollum (2006), the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) has awoken directors and executive managers to their organization’s dependence on IT, and the subsequent need to make IT governance a top priority.
IT governance is an integral part of overall enterprise governance and as such is the responsibility of boards and executive managers. However, according to Peterson (2008) and others, within the traditional corporate governance structure, directors routinely delegate, avoid or simply ignore IT decisions. This opinion is supported by many IT industry surveys that show that half of all IT executives surveyed believe their boards provide inadequate oversight of their company’s IT activities. This lack of attention by boards to IT matters has become a serious problem as, over the last twenty years, IT has moved from providing largely back-office support to becoming the prime facilitator and enabler of the total business. IT continues to grow in importance to organizations, both operationally and as a competitive advantage. Today, for example, the reliability of financial reporting is heavily dependent on a well-controlled IT environment.
For many companies, the strategic application of Information Technology (IT) is a matter of survival or extinction. Despite the significant role IT plays in business, most boards of directors (boards) remain largely in the dark when it comes to IT strategy and governance. However, according to McCollum (2006), the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) has awoken directors and executive managers to their organization’s dependence on IT, and the subsequent need to make IT governance a top priority.
IT governance is an integral part of overall enterprise governance and as such is the responsibility of boards and executive managers. However, according to Peterson (2008) and others, within the traditional corporate governance structure, directors routinely delegate, avoid or simply ignore IT decisions. This opinion is supported by many IT industry surveys that show that half of all IT executives surveyed believe their boards provide inadequate oversight of their company’s IT activities. This lack of attention by boards to IT matters has become a serious problem as, over the last twenty years, IT has moved from providing largely back-office support to becoming the prime facilitator and enabler of the total business. IT continues to grow in importance to organizations, both operationally and as a competitive advantage. Today, for example, the reliability of financial reporting is heavily dependent on a well-controlled IT environment.
Project Management
Steve believes that creating a strong project management culture is one of the most powerful steps your organization can take to integrate the processes and tools that enable organizational mastery of project management. In addition to the tactical benefits that a Project Manager can provide, it can also offer a compelling strategic advantage by helping teams collaborate, create, learn and harvest the expertise from their projects so that it may be reused by others.
Steve's project management methodology is an effective tool for your organization to create a project management roadmap of accountability, visibility and repeatability just a few of these areas include:
Steve's project management methodology is an effective tool for your organization to create a project management roadmap of accountability, visibility and repeatability just a few of these areas include:
- The Project Management Office (PMO) it is the perfect place to manage an organization’s portfolio of projects, both current and planned.
- A well maintained project portfolio is conducive to effective budget and resource management activities.
- The importance of standardized project status reporting. Steve can formulate the standard project dashboard status report and drive the institutionalization of the standard dashboard status reporting each month.
- Training is the best way to implement project management, followed by mentoring and tutoring. Steve can assist your project management efforts by establishing initial and follow-on training curriculums, mentoring of your young or inexperienced project managers so that you can build or strengthen the project management base within your organization.
- Accurate job descriptions for all associated positions in the project and project management office. This experience is valuable to your PMO when describing positions for recruiting, HR salary evaluations and advancements.
