During her 20-year climb up the corporate ladder at SAS, the world's largest privately held software company, Suzanne Gordon, SAS's CIO, developed a strategy for how IT could work in lockstep with the business units to reinforce the company's success. A roadblock stood in the way of selling her idea to management, and she decided to move out of IT and into the sales-consulting side of SAS. It was there that she got to see IT from the customer's perspective.

When the CIO position came open at SAS, which develops and markets business analytics software, Gordon was ready to turn her vision in a reality for her staff of 310 employees. In fact, in 2003, Computerworld recognized  Gordon's leadership talents by including her in the list of Premier 100 IT  Executives for that year.

Gordon recently talked with EnterpriseLeadership.org about how she carried out the realignment agenda for IT, how IT carries out the role of sales champion and beta tester, and how she develops and mentors her staff and young women interested in technical careers.

EL: What is your vision for IT at SAS?

SG: It's a people vision of getting the IT staff and the business unit leaders to work harmoniously together in carrying out the company's strategy. To accomplish this task, we need to correct any relationships that don't work as efficiently as they should, and to improve processes so we don't spend money on things we don't need.

EL: Describe the biggest risk you took in your IT career and what you  learned from the experience?

SG: I left IT because I wasn't happy with my boss. I loved what I did, but my boss and I were going in different directions. So I went over to SAS Consulting where I worked directly with customers.

The move gave me an entirely different perception of SAS -- how customers viewed us and how our customers viewed their IT departments. I became a customer of our IT department. I worked closely with our sales people, who are a different breed from IT folks. The experience taught me the value of communication. When the CIO position became available, I was better prepared for it than if I had stayed in my previous job.

EL: Can you describe how you realigned IT with the business  units?

SG: When I headed up applications for the MIS group, I wanted us to set up an IT governance council to meet quarterly with the business units. My boss at that time didn't like the idea. When I came back, this was the first thing I did.

I put together a list of all the projects we were working on. I then selected those projects that I knew everyone would be interested in, that were important to the business, that everyone would understand. The list went to the executive staff, who forwarded it to their directors and vice presidents of the various business units. These second-tier executives really understand how the company operates.

Since 2003, we have been meeting quarterly to discuss proposed new projects. Prior to each meeting, our business analysts in IT go over the proposed projects with each business unit executive. The business analysts do a rough executive summary of what is going to be involved and a rough guess about what resources that each project will take. During the meeting, we talk about each one of the projects, deciding if it is something we all agree needs to be worked on immediately, and ranking where it sits in the present priorities. Some projects get killed.

EL: Apart from deciding on projects, what other favorable things have  come out of the quarterly IT government meetings?

SG: The meetings show how well colleagues can cooperate with each other and do things for the good of the company, not their business unit.

The IT department no longer comes off as the bad guy.

I asked a Gartner Group analyst if other companies have good collaborative working relationships between IT and the business units. He said they work on "if you vote for my project this quarterly, I'll vote on yours next quarter."

I should add that cooperation and collaboration reside at the heart of SAS's culture. Also, the company's strong employee retention rate help to reinforce the willingness of everyone to work together.

EL: Do you have quality programs, such as Six Sigma, in  place?

SG: We haven't carried out any specific quality program. We've gotten some ideas from Six Sigma and the IT Infrastructure Library. We're always looking at how we can improve our processes.

EL: Can you give me an example of a concept you carried out for IT  that flowed out of a Six Sigma or ITIL?

SG: We've been trying to do more project management, but didn't want to be overwhelmed by assigning dozens of graduated levels to each project. We, instead, came up with a concept called, "just enough" project management. The degree of project management depends on the project's scope. For example, if it's a small project, we might do three things for it. We might do more things for a larger project.

EL: Do you get involved in beta testing SAS products?

SG: I have a dual role. In fact, I tell my staff, "We don't want to be the best IT organization, we want to be the IT organization that helps SAS be the best at what it does." In addition to the traditional IT tasks, we take the time to help test and to use new products for the business units. Finding and documenting bugs can take time away from scheduled IT projects. At the IT governance council meeting, we always discuss project delays. Business unit executives understand that what we're doing provides our customers with better quality software. We also use our software in-house.

EL: Can you go into more detail about how you work with the business  units that are testing these products?

SG: Our IT staff works with the research and development (R&D) staff who are writing the product, and the managers from the business unit. IT provides feedback to R&D staff on such things as how well the product was installed, and how easily it could be brought back up. The business unit evaluates the product's features.

EL: Since you use SAS software in house, do you help SAS sales  representatives influence prospective customers?

SG: Yes, in a couple of different ways. We set up a backend system that enables the sales representatives to demonstrate our enterprise software via the Web. Sometimes we go on sales calls or talk to customers on the telephone. We often meet with customers who come to our offices. We show them how our products work at SAS. We maintain a Web site that has data on all of the different SAS products we are using in-house. The site tells how we are using them and whom to contact as a product reference.

EL: How is performance and/or quality measured for IT?

SG: We don't measure performance or quality in a very analytical way. We tend to focus more on customer satisfaction. We do customer satisfaction surveys both on handling requests, problems, and then follow-up to projects.

EL: How do you develop your staff to be better at what they  do?

SG: We offer many on-site technical training courses. Our training budget enables our staff to go offsite and to learn new skills. We also do many workshops in interpersonal skills, such as team building. Informal coaching helps employees to work on the areas they need to improve.

I like to visit the front-line meetings and get a feel for what problems aren't getting up to me. Acting as a facilitator, I try to remove any obstacles that keep individuals for getting their job done.

EL: You have a B.S. in math and computer science and a M.S. in statistics. Outside of SAS, you participate in educational activities that help to promote technical professions to young women. Can you talk about what you do?

SG: I sit on the Board of Trustees at North Carolina State at Raleigh, where I graduated from. Various departments at the college frequently call upon me to speak at workshops, such as Women in Business sponsored by the MBA program.

EL: Larry Summers, president of Harvard College, took a lot of heat in the media when he said that women don't have the ability to do well in a math and the sciences. Comments!

SG: Summers' comment could easily bruise the confidence of a young woman who wants to pursue a career in a scientific or technical field. We need more women in these areas. Women bring a different perspective on things, especially human relations. Women tend to facilitate conversation. They tend to be concerned about getting the job done, not on proving they're always right.

--

Elizabeth Ferrarini is a free-lance writer and IT consultant from  Boston, Massachusetts. She can be reached at iswive@aol.com