In this Oracle World 2013 executive session, “What Steps Can Companies Take to Raise Their Digital IQ?” by Chris Curran from “PWC consulting”, you can learn about the magic formula employed by CIOs and IT Professionals, working for the best performing companies.

But before you spend an hour of your time, here is a summary of what all those companies have in common, and how they did it:

1. Close relationships between the CIO and the CEO

2. A Multi-Year plan to anchor daily priorities with strategy, rather than urgency and un-directed drifts

3. Invest mostly on the risky new technologies

4. Deliver on time, on budget and within scope

5. Have the strongest digital conversations in the form of real strong problem solving discussions with peers across the organization

How to build your Digital IQ and powerful Digital Conversations:

A) Innovate by focusing on learning what is going on outside, then filtering what you bring in, according to our missions your strategy defined.

B) Get necessary agreement on our mission for innovation, as IT professionals, so people will indeed listen to what we bring in.

C) What you focus on and learn, needs to get updated through a systemic process based on the business priorities. The list of items to prioritize should include a long list of emerging technologies, which can then be purified to the few disruptive technologies, according to the strategies filter you have.

D) As you look at options, always ask yourself “What business problem are we trying to solve?” and make sure you filter in, only options that can address this business problem.

E) Don’t rush to apply current concepts to new technologies, as successful as they have been in the past.

F) Ask yourself who will do the work? Innovation is work; don’t trick yourself to treat it as a hobby.

G) The CIO and IT Professional role is less about controlling the operation, and more about becoming the best advisor about what is out there and how to best embrace it