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Decision Making

Industry Articles

The Technology Decision Nobody Can Explain

Ask three executives who made the call on the last major technology investment, and the answers may not match. This article names the structural cause: an official decision process on the org chart running alongside a real, unofficial one that carries the actual authority, unmapped and unreconciled. It closes with what fixes it, mapping what actually happened and making four things explicit before redesigning anything.
Scott Smeester
August 25, 2026
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Why Layered Approval Fails Technology Leaders... And The Levers That Reverse It

Technology decisions often stall inside an approval chain nobody designed on purpose, even when ownership of the decision is completely clear. This article separates decision rights from approval architecture and names the specific levers, from collapsing redundant sign-offs to running independent reviews in parallel, that rebuild an approval chain for speed without lowering the organization's risk standard.
Scott Smeester
July 28, 2026
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Why CIOs Avoid Explicit Tradeoffs... And Why It Hurts Them

CIOs routinely omit the one piece of information executives need most: what is being given up to fund the ask. The executive room reads that omission as incomplete prioritization, and adjusts trust accordingly. The CIOs who declare the sacrifice ... and stand behind the call ... earn a kind of credibility that thorough analysis alone cannot produce.
Scott Smeester
March 2, 2026
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Leadership Blogs

How Effective CIOs Determine What The Real Problem Is

Problems surround the CIO. Solving for the wrong problem wastes time, energy and money. Five shifts help the CIO determine real problems from presenting issues.

Scott Smeester

October 28, 2021

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How Leaders Maximize Outside Input And See Results Overnight

Most sources of outside input end up as waste. The CIO is more valuable than that; your velocity and capacity of growth depend on the source of influence. A well-led peer advisory group will give you the results you need in the time you need it.

Scott Smeester

June 3, 2021

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The CIO Driver: Retool Your Leadership By Rethinking Your Definition

Leaders get frustrated when they aren’t getting anywhere. That’s why leadership is more than influence; it involves knowing how to rally, craft and drive. Of the three, drive seems to be the least emphasized in modern perspectives of leadership. It’s time to recover that.

Scott Smeester

April 13, 2021

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