A global CIO masterclass and the alchemy of innovation:

The Practical CIO: A common sense guide for successful IT leadership

José Carlos Eiras

Very few global CIOs have ever felt compelled to document their career-defining experiences (their success stories as well as their shortcomings) and allthe lessons they have learnt and observed while running enterprise IT organisations. But José Carlos Eiras has taken the time out from a glittering career – in which he has been CIO at DHL Express USA and at General Motors in Europe and Latin America, plus held executive roles at Philip Morris and General Foods – to produce what amounts to a masterclass in CIO best practice.

His book’s rather prosaic title belies a broad exploration of what CIOs should do to emerge as business heroes, with Eiras sharing insight into the critical areas where they need to excel: from meshing IT with the businessand managing their organisation’s brand to holding vendors accountable and negotiating great contracts. Far from this being dry, the discussion is highly engaging and seeded with numerous anecdotes and real-life examples.

And the lessons are not just those of Brazil-born Eiras. He pools the experience of numerous peers, adding broad perspective through in-depth interviews with current and former CIOs from Smithfield Foods, Citigroup, the NYPD, the FBI, Standard Chartered Bank and many others.

Ultimately, Eiras believes the increasingly central role of CIOs makes them ideal candidates for even loftier positions. Whether or not many make it into the CEO’s chair, his guidance holds the potential to be instrumental in establishing a generation of stars of business-centric IT.

Innovate the Future: A radical new approach to IT innovation

David Croslin

There's too much randomness in most organisations’ current innovation processes, believes David Croslin. Through his highly systematic methodology, developed over many years as an IT innovator at some of the world’s leading tech companies, he shows how chance can be eliminated from the equation by clearly identifying the market requirement first, then by following a rigorous process to develop products that precisely meet the need and deliver a genuine “transformative value” to the consumer. It’s this transformative value, he argues, that turns an invention into an innovation.

He also demonstrates how the wrong kinds of innovation – or even too much innovation at a certain point in a product’s lifecycle – can be wasteful or even damaging. Moreover, IT innovation, he believes, is no special case and should be treated the same way as any other kind of product development, from fast food to fast cars.

Croslin’s writing style can be a little hard-going and repetitive at times, and he employs very few case studies to bring the subject to life (“This book … is directed at creating innovation, not at focusing on past innovation failures,” he writes in justification). However, anyone looking for a more effective way to drive innovation throughout their department or organisation will find this exhaustive manual and its fresh, logical thinking well worth their time. After all, anyone with 25 patents to his name is not to be ignored.