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Permalink Reply by Mike Lachapelle on February 17, 2012 at 1:31pm

Hello Victor;

If you would be so kind, could you provide us with some context for this model. What is it supposed to represent? What is the purpose behind the modelling work? Always keeping in mind a BM canvas is a tool for a conversation, what is the conversation around this model?

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Permalink Reply by Victor Vargas on February 18, 2012 at 3:52pm

Hello Mike, 

Thank you very much for your reply.

I have developed this model to try to depict the key elements that comes into play in the role of Chief Information Officers. Being a CIO my self I'm embarked in running my department as a business and since I have modeled other functions or business using the canvas I decided to do the same for my own function.

I originaly published this canvas with a more detailed explanation of each block in my blog "El CIO Zen" (The Zen CIO) a couple weeks ago, for more details please visit http://ciozen.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/cio-business-model/

This is the introduction:

"The average CIO (IT Director) starts in the position with more questions than answers regardingthe key elements for the effective execution of his job, the relationship between them and the specific weight that each of these elements have in achieving the objectives of the IT organization he leads. Of course every company and therefore any IT organization is unique, but in an attempt to establish a specification that describes conceptually the most common and relevant elements to the role of the CIO, I decided to use the business model ontology developed by Dr. Alexander Osterwalder known as "Business Model canvas."

I will love to get your feed back on my post.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Lachapelle on February 18, 2012 at 4:38pm

Well, it is my shortcoming that my language skills are limited to English and French (being the good Canadian I am), so it is difficult for me to give you a reaction to the blog.

In reading your piece above and looking at the canvas I believe your effort is made more difficult in the mixture of describing the business of the organization and the role of the CIO. I would suggest it might be easier to do if you were to separate these two.

If you haven't already read it, or are unaware of it, Tim Clarke has recently released a terrific book that takes the BM canvas and applies it to personal business models; the book is called Business Model You. The approach that Tim and his community take to describing personal skills and work context as a business model would be extremely helpful in what I think you are trying to accomplish here.

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Permalink Reply by Victor Vargas on February 19, 2012 at 4:20am

This is great feedbak Mike, thank you so much.

I can see what you mean by separating concerns between the IT Organization and the role of the CIO, I'll think about it and figure it out what refinements I should work on to clarify this, in any case my focus is on modeling the CIO perspective in the way a CEO should look at any business model beyond the organizational structure behind the business.

Thank you also for the hint about Tim's new book its definitely a good source to fine tune my CIO's BM.

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