The CTO diamond of excellence

What is the responsibility of a Chief Technology Officer / CTO? Throughout the years I have defined the "diamond of excellence" for tech leadership. A strong CTO must master all of these areas - they are intertwined and together result in the value a the CTO and tech organisation will deliver.

1. Business - this is valid for or commercial technology - which business do you operate in, and which factors shape the business? What level of maturity / evolution is the current state of technology? What drivers will effect the business long and short term? This is the overarching goal for the CTO.

2. People - you need a skilled team to deliver. Which roles? Which seniority? Which qualifications? How should your organisation look? What can you afford? How do you recruit, support/develop/grow and inspire your team? Do you need all roles full time? Which culture are you building? Why?

3. Tech - what is your technology supposed to do? How do you build capable systems? Which architecture? Which infrastructure? Which way to deploy and ship your system? How to defend your system from threats? How to maintain and keep your system stable? How to keep your system architecture and code base healthy over time?

4. Teamwork - also called "methods" or "process" - I prefer calling it teamwork. How do you define which way to deliver technology? Which activities are required and why? How should they relate to eachother? Should you re-use a common methodology or does your team and product need something else?

With experience a CTO learns the craft of thinking around these areas (learning from mistakes and successes). As all crafts this takes time and a lot of effort - in a space with a very high velocity for engineering evolution - a fantastic leadership role!

Tags

• tech leadership