I was a founder of a tech company and reached big bosses and CTOs of other companies. Recently a friend asked how should look for / become a better CTO? From my previous conversations and observations, I shared one of the main factors: How to “GROW”.
GROW can be considered in 2 domains:
- Business Domain: How to grow the company?
- Technology Domain: How to grow the staff in the tech department?
In short, generally, CTOs manage the whole technology department, and they join the regular C-level meetings with the big boss and heads of other departments, which are the most basic tasks in the above 2 domains. But the role of CTO can be done better.
In the business domain, some CTOs focus on how to handle the requests made from other departments, but they do not understand the actual work of other departments, and then it is a failure to analyse and reorder the departmental requirements in different departments. This situation could be caused by a lack of effective communication, CTOs should set up some single/bi-direction activities with other departments outsides the C-level meetings. For example, observation and group meetings.
For the annual I.T. budget, some CTOs think the basic only: how to spend the budget for different projects and needs and let the Financial department consider and value the depreciation of the I.T. systems & assets reflecting on the books of accounting. But some CTOs do not think about how much of the I.T. spending can grow the business value for the company.
Examples:
- in what ways to develop software systems to help the growth of business for the company.
- how to grow the staff in the technology department continuously? Their new innovations and contributions can grow the business value after the staff grows from learning new technologies.
In the technology domain, some CTOs focus on team management, staff recruitment, outsourcing, follow-ups on system upgrades and development. But they are outdated in the technology trend (this is hardly found & discovered by Big Bosses/CEOs), even some CTOs do not know and use Agile working style or development model to manage their team and projects. A better CTO attend seminars and tech conferences to know and understand new technology, try new technology on their own or a small team, to think how can the company and the team use the new technology to grow the company and bring new business values.
Allocating the study budget for after-work courses is the old school method. One of the new methods is allowing staff to attend local and overseas tech conferences for 1 to few days, to grow the staff and inspire them to develop new applications and services, which can grow the business value and start the digital transformation. The company can build a better & more solid digital platform for business if the technology team can contribute to open source development and form some cross-corporation digital platform alliances. CTOs should build the technology culture at first, and then it will be more attractive to technology talents in higher quality to make the team better.
After this short sharing to friends, I write it down to share to the public and help more big bosses and CTOs have a concept of how to look for / become a better CTO. Please email me to arrange a meeting/discussion if you are interested to know more in deep.
After this short sharing to friends, I write it down to share to the public and help more big bosses and CTOs have a concept of how to look for / become a better CTO. Please email me to arrange a meeting/discussion if you are interested to know more in deep.
Author: Sammy Fung
former tech firm founder
global technology community leader
a Christian