Whether in the public or the private sector, the changing of the guard is an exciting and anxious time. We've all been there: new governor, new CEO, new boss. The fresh-faced knight strides in full of confidence, ready to cure all ills with his visionary agenda. Ideas flow while he surveys his kingdom, forming his plan of attack. Then change begins.
The IT units in the state of Utah have seen this happen with some regularity. As Michael Ybarra reports in "Utah's Centralizer," in the space of four years, three CIOs came and went. Most didn't arrive with grand plans to recast computing for the Industry State, however; they couldn't. The CIO there had no actual power, and each of the state's 24 agencies had its own IT fiefdom. Achieving buy-in from the labyrinth of stakeholders was next to impossible.
But that changed when a new governor swept in and the legislature mandated IT centralization, with the CIO atop a pyramid and all of IT reporting to him. Despite a loss of autonomy for the agency, the new structure has ardent fans. "We get a broader view and better standards," says Phil Bates, director of IT for the Department of Public Safety. He used to report to the head of his agency but now reports to the new CIO, J. Stephen Fletcher.
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