Why do CBOs have so much control over (but so little understanding of) IT?

I recently took presidents to task over their lack of understanding of (the role of) IT at their institutions. But CEO may not be the cabinet position that has the greatest impact on CIOs and the provision of IT (or lack thereof) at our universities.   That, my friends, falls the very short distance to the VP responsible for the vast number of administrative units and the budgeting and finance controls of the institution: The chief business officer – or CBO.

My experience has been that university chief business officers (CBOs) have tremendous control over IT at institutions, because they have great control over the provision of a key IT resource – funding. As they say in The Right Stuff, “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.” I believe every shortfall in IT infrastructure or service at our universities today can be traced to a lack of appropriate investment in IT over the past two decades. Too often, this lack of funding has been because an institution’s CBO felt – in the words of one CBO with whom I worked –

“… you haven’t convinced me of the importance of IT.”

You’ll note the word I emphasized in that statement. As an emeritus made-man of the CIO la cosa nostra, I say to these CBOs: “Who died and made you boss?” 

Judging from some of the reactions to my last missive, many CIOs would lay the fault for such sentiments at our profession’s feet. I agree that we CIOs have not always done as thorough and as effective a job at explaining how IT investments fit in the broader university strategy for success, to be worthy of CBO support. But at some point you explain yourself silly, over things that in many cases are straightforward if not simply intuitive. At this point the focus should shift away from the CIO’s ability to explain to the CBO’s willingness to understand (or lack of willingness).

I challenge any CIO to say they’ve never experienced an element of capricious judgment from a CBO who simply didn’t want to understand, or who would not invest enough of their time to try to understand the institution’s need for IT enablement. While there is a significant part for CIOs to play in healing the CBO’s knowledge gap, I’m not going to blame the victim in this diatribe; I’m going to deliver unto the CBO that which is due the CBO. They are the ones who hold the institutional keys to the funding vault. Too often these CBOs have an indefensible amount of sway in decisions for accessing said vault; though this might also be attributed to presidents that facilitate that sway by being unwilling to challenge their own CBOs.

Let me step back for a moment to say that I have a deep appreciation for the role of chief administrative and business officers at our universities, and great respect for the challenges they face – often alone. Like presidents, these are tiring, always-on, and stressful jobs – maybe not with the “loss of person” aspects of presidencies, but certainly a work-life that easily consumes nearly all waking hours. I can relate to their stress and struggle – it’s not unlike the job of CIO, actually. We both are perched atop our own volcanoes that could go off at any moment. One must ask then: Why can’t we be closer and do things together?

Over the course of the decade as a CIO, the best friend I ever made within the cabinet of an institution was the CBO; he was my brother-from-another-mother and my confidant.   Together we advanced a great many important IT initiatives in the relatively short time we had together (~2 years). He worked with me to acquire (by arranging the funding) a modern data center space so that our IT budget funds could be dedicated toward hardware, software, and humanware. This allowed us to leverage additional contributions from researchers and academic units to build a significantly more substantial research computing environment to serve our university. He – and our provost partner – changed the funding model for communications (voice and data) – getting it out of an archaic charge-back model into one that funds it as a university strategic asset. He took point on the transition of his financial information system, not leaving it to me as “just an IT thing.” Would that every CIO have a CBO partner like the one I had … well … I could have played golf rather than writing this.

I was so enamored of this relationship and what it was doing for our university that I used my one and only EDUCAUSE Presidential Fellow dedicated annual conference session to focus on the rare and uncommon nature of a close CIO/CBO relationship. He was the Crosby to my Hope.  The Martin to my Lewis. The peas to my carrots. Okay, you get the picture; we were tight and the university benefited (IMHO).

In preparing for the session, I reached out to a conclave of about 60 of my Carnegie Research-1 CIO colleagues and asked the question: Whom among you has a close and productive working relationship with your institution’s CBO? I excluded those cases where the CIO reported to the CBO; I didn’t want camaraderie that was in the shadow of a performance review. Out of those 60 CIOs, I had just two replies in the affirmative. Two. So with my relationship, that made … three. Out of 61. That’s good for a concise 45-minute panel discussion session, but as an overall indicator of health in this key relationship? Not so much.

Snap back to reality, my relationships with the CBO haven’t always been so rosy as this one. In fact, none were even close. Frankly, I felt like I was always walking on eggs around the CBO. And as one of them once told me: When you’re walking on eggs … don’t hop. As mentioned, the CBO often controls the vital resource of money – both the base-budgetary sources of funds and especially the one-time discretionary investments (remember – no bucks, no Buck Rogers). Too often, the ‘discretionary’ aspect really means at the discretion of the CBO – you haven’t convinced me. I’ll gig presidents once more on this malarkey as many are unwilling to go against the advice of their CBOs – even though it means going against the advice of their CIOs.

When I wrote about ‘special snowflakes’ I was throwing a lot of shade in the direction of registrars and other ‘owners’ of the overly-customized ERP systems. But some CBOs can appear to lose sight of what the institution is supposed to be doing and view their operations as the special snowflake. I once had a CBO who decried spending on “the black hole” (by which he meant research cyberinfrastructure and technology-enhanced instruction) and instead advocated to put IT’s main focus on those systems (specifically his finance and administrative systems) that were “the backbone of the institution.” But that CBO’s point was that my focus as a CIO was “drifting” too much into the IT needs of researchers and academics, and away from the administration and its IT needs. In his view, my priorities were wrong and when I disagreed with that assessment vigorously, he provided me a “Strother-Martin moment.” I certainly realize that the general ledger, chart of accounts, payables, procurement, payroll, and other aspects of the finance ERP are critical to how well the institution can operate. BUT ... these systems do NOT comprise the backbone of the university; they are important but not preeminent.

When I made a case for the need to develop sound lifecycle funding for employee (faculty and staff) personal productivity devices (computers, laptops, etc.) and I made the case based upon securing the environment and decreasing overall support costs (the dreaded TCO), and backed it up with EDUCAUSE case studies and direct experiences, I heard those famous words “… you haven’t convinced me.” When I asked what more might I provide (since I felt I had even thrown in the kitchen sink by that point) I was told, “I don’t know … probably you can’t.” And that’s where that story – and the prospect for lifecycle funding at that institution – ended. Sounds suspiciously capricious to me.

The replies to my last post show that CIOs are very introspective and often look to themselves first as the cause of any shortcomings in these relationships. And if we aren’t good at justifying our needs and strategies, nor are we able to explain our endeavors in terms non-technical colleagues can grasp, then indeed we are partly (or even mostly) to blame. I believe we have to go more than halfway in this effort to help our CBO colleagues grasp what it is we need to or want to do. But if there is a deep and alligator-filled moat surrounding rigid CBO views and positions regarding IT, then I don’t feel the need to chastise my profession for not drowning or being consumed trying to cross over said moat.

During my tenure as EDUCAUSE Presidential Fellow, we were getting busy building bridges with the CBO community. NACUBO was a great partner in this endeavor, perhaps owing in some part that its CEO had great exposure as a board chair for a university where IT was a strategic asset and multiplier of success. And through the early cross-association endeavors where representatives from both professions gathered to examine Administrative IT, I met other CBOs who were more ‘Crosbys’ for CIO ‘Hopes’ (please note the effective use of a pun). This was encouraging and when I retired I felt real change in the CIO/CBO relationship just around the corner.

However, I was recently discouraged by a conversation with a campus academic leader (a provost) about the state of IT at her institution and the need for strategic thought and funding. She responded to a question regarding strategic planning and initiatives in IT on her campus by mentioning that the CBO did not see the strategic value in IT, instead viewing it simply as a utility and service to be done by the lowest bidder. And regarding a specific significant investment needed to replace vital IT infrastructure?  He had essentially said, “You haven’t convinced me.”

What to do? I mean, besides putting on a red spandex suit and making the chimi-bleeping-changas?

Once again, I turn my attention back to the CEO of the campus – the president or chancellor. If these chief executives understood the role of IT and had a grasp of its significance to the function of their institutions, then I believe in most cases (shadow governments notwithstanding) the situation would resolve itself in short order. CBOs should play significant roles in ensuring that all cabinet members – the CIO in particular – understand the state of funding, the challenges faced in finance, and the need to look holistically at the campus and investments made in times of constraint (i.e., perpetually). CBOs should not become unilateral judges in these matters, nor even as part of a triumvirate of leadership (CEO, CAO, CBO). Such institutional models should be questioned by boards, and not just due to their negative influence on information technology support.

NACUBO and EDUCAUSE must continue to build and strengthen the relationship between the members of their respective associations. Steps like the Enterprise IT Summit are important components, but there needs to be more and more cross-association working groups focusing beyond administrative IT (a term I still prefer to ‘enterprise’). I laud the efforts of NACUBO president John Walda and EDUCAUSE president John O’Brien to advance this important relationship. Maximum effort!

To CBOs, I realize you often take the weight of the university on your shoulders; but you may have allowed that to isolate you and make you feel alone in the battle – hence you act unilaterally and perhaps feel that you’re the only one who can decide funding matters. That’s just not the case – and it’s a power that eventually corrupts you and diminishes your institution. I ask that you stop saying “You haven’t convinced me” and instead try “Help me understand so we can solve these challenges together.” A lot more words for the verbally frugal CBO-type, I'll admit. But that would truly be a happy ending. Or more accurately, a happy beginning. 

My dream would be relationships between CIOs and CBOs that would look like that one shining moment I had.   I think it’s possible. But it takes two to tango.

Oh … in case you might be wondering, this is not going to be a trilogy; there will not be a third part castigating provosts/chief academic officers. While there are some CAOs who are well described in one or both of the two missives I’ve written, most are not. More so lately, thanks to the realization of the role IT plays in transforming education delivery for today and tomorrow.

Besides, I want to keep a home fire burning in at least one of those hearths. Hopefully that’s one naughty list I can avoid!