IT Leadership is laughably bad. With the introduction of a new CIO, the IT organization has gone from a slow, bloated band of retirement short timers with some guiding principals to the CIO’s personal ego-laden cruise ship navigating the North Atlantic with a first mate and navigator who have never sailed anything larger than a dingy and no one on watch for the inevitable ice burgs.
The new CIO has shown a propensity toward unethical actions. He seems incapable of decision making and delegates everything that requires any thoughtful analysis to his C-level henchmen. The C-Level IT leadership can’t seem to get past their bloated egos for any level of self awareness.
The entire IT organization has quickly become completely devoid of direction. The only focus is cutting cost and moving to a consolidated medical records system which seems to be the bullit item the CIO needs for his resume. He expounds customer obsession, but has done nothing to enable the organization to deliver.
From an overall IT perspective, Architecture is nonexistent, filled with sysadmins and network technicians. The Program Management Office has been dissolved and has turned into a project management free-for-all with no prioritization. Infrastructure has been gutted of leadership. Application teams are chasing their tails and duplicating effort. Operations leadership has no operations experience. IT finance is completely out of touch with the requirements of running an IT organization. There is literally no aspect of IT that is running well under the new leadership.
The new CIO has said in meetings that “HR won’t let me fire who I want so I will just have to make it so uncomfortable that they will leave”. And leaving they are. With the notable loss of the CISO, everyone of technical substance is working on an exit strategy.
If you are considering a role in IT with Seattle Children’s Hospital, you should reconsider. Things here are going to get much, much worse before they get better.
