Introducing Small Company CTO Blog

These days it is a given that a medium size or large company will have a Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Information (computer) technology (IT) represents a significant business expense, and permeates all aspects of our business. It must be managed as a valuable resource, and the business must receive quantifiable value from its IT investment. Larger companies may have divisional CTOs reporting directly, or dotted line to a corporate Office of the CTO. CTOs have wide responsibilities for IT infrastructure, system development and information utilization. They may have staffs to whom they delegate the management of large budgets, inventory, operations, process and procedure development, security, business continuity planning, system development, project management (PMO), vendor management, research, architecture, outsourced development and procurement, among others. A large company will have documented policies and procedures that govern all the above.

In a small company, the CTO wears all the same hats without anyone to whom to delegate. In some small companies the IT Director assumes many of these roles, as they become necessary. Company management may not appreciate the vast scope of the roles one person is being asked to play.

The role of the CTO in a small company can be vastly different than that same role in a larger organization. It really takes a wider breadth of skills and experience, and an active network of outside skilled professionals to:
• Consult on thorny problems
• Bounce ideas off
• Pick up the slack on critical projects when the budget permits.

The small company CTO must manage the Technology and technologists, contribute hands-on deliverables in areas that his or her staff lacks the necessary skill, support the business functions and goals of the company and patiently explain IT initiatives to business management. Over the next several months I hope to share my experience in all these areas through essays and anecdotes published in this space. I will select a topic and attempt follow that as a theme through several entries. However, as interesting events overtake me in my various roles with different companies, I will share off-topic entries out of sequence.

Aaron Cohen
October 7, 2009