State CIOs are ‘change leaders’ with two expansive jobs
Chief information officers inhabit a position in state government that assigns them an uncommonly expansive set of responsibilities, according to a report published Tuesday by the National Association of State CIOs.
The 12-page report, authored by Eric Sweden, who directs NASCIO’s enterprise architecture and governance program, offers a two-part framework for managing that complex job, one that the group has taken to characterizing primarily as a “change leader.” The first part is to “run” the state government’s IT enterprise, and the second part is to “renew” that enterprise, by providing “continuous modernization to meet future service, workforce and policy needs.”
Pointing back to results from the group’s most recent annual survey of its membership, Sweden notes that state CIOs’ top roles are “change leader,” “communicator,” “strategist” and “relationship manager.” The report quotes an unnamed state CIO who advised the uninitiated: “Understand that most of your job has nothing to do with IT.”
Running an IT enterprise, the report notes, includes tasks like managing vendors and contracts, ensuring cybersecurity and regulatory compliance and providing consistent services. Renewing the enterprise is to “explore new value streams,” “develop future-ready workforce skills” and pilot-test new technologies. “This is an expansive role that goes beyond keeping the lights on,” the report reiterates.
Sweden calls out quantum computing and artificial intelligence as examples of new and emerging technologies that state CIOs are adroitly “anticipating and preparing” for: “Quantum computing capabilities will require long term preparation, workforce future-readiness, candidate value streams, business processes, roles and responsibilities that must be explored now.”
AI, he wrote, “is a set of capabilities like no other in history, thus requiring special attention and governance.” The two-part CIO operating model, he continued, “treats AI governance as a repeatable enterprise function rather than a one-time policy.” Operationally, the report notes, AI encompasses tasks like fraud detection, cybersecurity and improving workflow efficiency, while AI “exploration” includes looking at “new digital citizen experiences,” “enterprise knowledge copilots” and “policy simulation.”
The report similarly spells out other CIO responsibilities, including workforce management and “decision rights and accountability,” before ending on a reminder that CIOs must rely on the expertise of their teams — “No one person can be an expert in every possible business or technological issue or capability.” — and a call to action for others in government: “Agencies and legislatures should engage and support this expansive role of the state as essential to achieving their strategic mission. The state CIO and their staff are dedicated to successfully achieving that intent in achieving the best possible outcomes for people paying for government – our citizens.”
