INTERVIEW QUESTIONS-ONE

CIO interview questions - Leadership

Leadership is about understanding how to move people and the business

forward. The most effective CIOs view themselves as business leaders first
and IT leaders second. These questions focus on helping the interviewer
assess a candidate's leadership views, accomplishments, and likelihood of
leadership success from then onward. Interviewers should focus on the
candidates ability to communicate in business terms, articulate measurable
business outcomes, motivate people and handle leadership challenges.

Can you explain how you saw a business problem and applied
technology to solve it? What was the outcome?

What significant contribution did you make at your last company? How
did you achieve it?

What is your understanding of return on investment and how it applies

to IT?

Can you articulate your understanding of risk and how it applies to IT?
Provide an example of how you applied this knowledge to mitigate risk.

Can you give an example of when you improved a business process?

What was the outcome? What role did you play?

What is your view of your leadership style? Give an example that

illustrates it.

What is the most difficult decision you had to make as a leader? Why
was it difficult? What was the outcome?

How would you define the role of CIO?

What determines whether a CIO succeeds or fails?

Describe a situation in which you succeeded. What did you do

specifically to make it successful?

Describe a situation in which you failed. What did you do specifically

that had an impact on failure, and what did you learn or do as a result?
 How do you lead your direct reports? Give an example of when you -
resolved a conflict among team members or improved their
performance as a team.

CIO interview questions - Strategy and planning

A core challenge for any executive is balancing long-term versus short-term

planning and execution. Many executives are strong in strategic vision but
have difficulty gaining support in accomplishing that vision. These questions
focus on the CIO candidates experience and ability to set long-term goals,
while managing the complex task of gaining cooperation to actually
accomplish those goals.

What would you do in the first 90 days?

Describe your own approach to governance and how you would

determine the best framework for our organisation.

Provide an example of when you explained and sold the concept of IT

architecture and standards to business leaders.

How do you gain agreement and cooperation from a diverse set of

stakeholders? Provide an example of when you did this successfully.

How do you deal with stakeholders who want to break away from a
shared service or a standardised or centralised process?

How do you decide what to outsource and what to keep in house?

Provide an example of when you identified an opportunity to be

innovative. How did you find the opportunity and what was the
outcome?

Provide an example of when you drove top-line growth or delivered

competitive advantage to the enterprise. How did you do it?

Provide an example of what you did when there was more demand for
IT than resources to fulfil the requests.

CIO interview questions - Technical expertise

These questions focus on determining how the candidate thinks about

technology from a value perspective and applies it to solve business
problems. The questions can help an interviewer determine how a candidate
stays current on technology issues and opportunities in the ever-changing
technology marketplace. They also can help interviewers assess a
candidate's ability to communicate about IT in business terms, and in a
business context.

Provide an example of when you convinced senior leadership to make

a major technology investment.

What is the most difficult technology-related investment decision you

had to make? Why was it difficult and what was the outcome?

How do you stay current on technology trends and innovations?

Give an example of when you implemented a new or emerging

technology. How did you manage the risks?

What are the top two or three ways that you and we can measure the
value of the IT function? How do you influence each of these in the
short term and longer term?

Do you set the technical direction, or does someone else? What

process do you use to set the technical direction?

How reliant are you on technical advisors and how do you manage
exposure?

What are the most important skills to have in the IT department? How
did you go about hiring IT workers or developing those skills in your
team?

CIO interview questions - Financial management

All executives must display sound financial management and invest limited
resources strategically. This question set focuses on the CIO candidates
ability to view the IT budget as a portfolio of assets, and to manage it in a
manner consistent with the risk profile and strategic approach of the
interviewing organisation.

Give an example of when you had to cut the IT budget. How did you go
about it, and how much did you save?

Give an example of when you helped reduce costs for the rest of the
enterprise by using IT. How did you go about it and how much did you
save?
 What percentage of enterprise revenue is your current IT budget? How
does this compare with your industry peers?

How do you determine whether an enterprise is spending enough on

IT, an appropriate level or too much?

What percentage of your current IT spending is for maintenance versus

growth and transformation activities? Is that the appropriate mix and
why?

What percentage of your IT budget is for outsourced activities? How do

you determine what to outsource?

By what percentage did you overrun or under-run your IT budget last

year? Why?

Describe any experience you have with chargeback models. How did it
work, what were the benefits of the systems, and what problems did
chargeback create? How did you manage the challenges?

CIO interview questions - Operational excellence

Leadership without execution is a formula for failure. This question set

focuses on the candidates ability to adjust and course-correct as needed to
ensure success. Interviewers should look for strong examples of success,
where the candidate has delivered clear business outcomes, and evidence of
his or her adaptability.

What is the largest IT-related initiative for which you were responsible,
in terms of cost, elapsed time, scope or team size? How did you
evaluate its success?

What is the largest non-IT-related initiative for which you were

responsible? How did you evaluate its success?

How did this initiative deliver in terms of cost, schedule and quality?

What percentage of the business case benefits were actually achieved?

What impact did the initiative have on business performance metrics?

 How have you prioritised when there was not enough budget to meet
demand?

Provide an example of when the execution of an initiative did not go as

planned and what you did.

Provide an example of how you led, motivated and organised a team to

achieve during a difficult situation.

While no candidate will display each of the above qualities and capabilities in
equal measure, hiring executives can use this interview list to decide which
are most important to their enterprises now. While all candidates should
have some strength in each of these focus areas, the enterprises situation
will determine whether leadership, execution or other capabilities are most
important to acquire in a new CIO. Use this list as a starting point for your -
interviews, and then customise it to find a CIO who will not only be able to
succeed in contributing to the enterprises goals, but also be a strong
executive team member and fit for the enterprise's culture.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS-TWO

1. What's your biggest challenge as a CIO from a day to day operational

perspective?
2. What IT trends do you see impacting your organization in the near-
term?
3. How does your organization fit into the strategic direction of the
company?
4. What do you enjoy most about being CIO?
5. What do you enjoy least about being CIO?
6. What do you know now that you wished you had known then?

7. What advice do you have for someone wanting to follow in your

footsteps?

10 Questions for Your CIO

1. How is IT using technology to support the business?
It is important that CEOs be aware of the direction their IT organization is facing. Is it just
internally facing, or is it concerned with making top- or bottom-line improvements? Sattler says
understanding that will allow a CEO to gauge how involved the IT organization is with the
successful transaction of business and the leveraging of technology to drive efficiency.
2. How do you reconcile key IT initiatives with the bottom line?
The CEO needs to make sure there is a business case for every project in the IT portfolio. Not
every initiative will translate to improvements or bolster the business strategy, and in those
situations, the CEO must be aware of the impetus and cost in order to make an executive
decision on its fulfillment. In the end, says Sattler, its all about what were doing to improve
shareholder value.

3. How can we best use the analytics that you provide?

CEOs need to be able to interpret analytics so that they can report in an informed manner to their
board of directors. Those numbers will show them trends that they can study for correlation to
the business strategy theyre driving. They will also identify where in the business they may need
to intervene to improve results.

4. What do I need to understand about the IT environment to better lead

my department?
A CEO needs to understand the capabilities of IT and what it can deliver. It can improve the
efficiency of the business from the inside and the quality of the product or service externally. In
a B-to-C world, IT can help drive value to the customer, Sattler says. Having a grasp on the
departments potential and the information it can put into a CEOs hands helps leadership make
the right decisions.

5. How do your IT projects align with our strategy?

Asking this question will allow a CEO to gauge where resources are being directed within IT and
if they are yielding worthy returns. ITs workload will comprise new projects and ongoing
support. While the perfect ratio will vary by companySattler says his goal is to reach a 50-50
splitboth have the potential to drive down costs whose savings can be reinvested.

6. What trends does our company need to be aware of?

Its important for CEOs to have a basic awareness of the trends in the market, especially threats
within IT, so that they can plan for them in strategy sessions. Sattler says the key trends CEOs
should be focusing on now are big data, the cloud, cyber security, and intellectual-property theft.

7. What major challenges do we face that IT can help us solve?

This question will allow a CEO to determine the true competitive advantage the IT function
creates for the business. If the answer suggests IT isnt helping differentiate the company from
the competition, but rather is focused on the back office, that should be a red flag for leadership.

8. What is IT doing to support innovation in the company and its own

organization to deliver better solutions?
Besides keeping the lights on, one of the key advantages IT brings to a company is innovation
whether through research and development to improving processes and efficiency. A CEO should
be sure IT is doing more than maintaining the status quo by helping the company progress.
9. What are you doing to help control risk for the company?
With the openness of the Internet and state-sponsored hacking, Sattler says CEOs should be
cognizant of what their IT organization is doing to protect the assets of the company. Whether
physical or intellectual, IT has a responsibility to the shareholders and the board to protect its
property, he says.

10. How is the IT organization managing its budget effectively?

Every business function has a fiduciary responsibility, and it is imperative for a CEO to be
conscious of those areas where funds are being poorly allocated or wastefully spent. IT can be a
costly operation, but Sattler stresses that aggressively managing contracts and making cost-
conscious decisionslike opting for generics over name brandscan get the job done without
breaking budget.