CIOs typically shoulder responsibility for technology failure. But CEOs and Boards don’t get a pass. Lack of courage and loss of vision are at the heart of the failure, and CIOs can step up beforehand to change and focus the conversation around business and customer experience, not just bottom lines.

The answer to talent gaps, backlogs and shadow IT is Citizen Development. It’s not a fad, it’s a movement, and one you must lead and shape to resolve challenges you still face and will face more of in years ahead.

CIOs and CEOs need a cohesive strategy to counter the technology talent gap, backlog and shadow IT. Citizen Development is the framework that will get it done.

CIOs don’t need to understand the inner workings of data analytics, but they do need to see the value in it. But beyond that, it is not about the data but the decisions, which means CIOs need to approach data analytics not as a center, but as communities.

Stakeholders know the value of the CIO. The last thing they want is for their CIO to be led down a wrong path, distracted by the agenda of others, and misdirected by trends that lure them into waste.

Before telling the truth to others, tell it to yourself. An exercise in introspection will go a long way to turning hard-conversations into effective, watershed moments of change.