What I Learned in School

摘要

When I joined Jefferson County Public Schools as CIO in mid-2002, I knew I was walking into a troubled situation. My predecessor had been asked to leave amid allegations of poor fiscal management. IT's reputation had taken a huge hit. There was so little trust in my department that the only goal identified in the 2002-2003 district strategic plan for IT was to end the year within budget. There were no stated service or performance expectations and certainly no expectations of strategic input. There was also the matter of a multimillion-dollar deficit that had to be paid off within two years, higher than normal public scrutiny and an IT staff that believed it had paid with its own blood for management's indiscretions. On top of all that, the CIO position, which used to report directly to the superintendent (equivalent to a company's CEO), now would be reporting to the COO. I knew my path would be a lot smoother if I had direct access to the superintendent and her direct reports, but it was no surprise that my superintendent was now organizationally shielded from IT. Jefferson County Public Schools was truly an organization that felt it had suffered greatly at the hands of poor IT management.