Any IT company that wants to achieve success in its projects needs leaders who are capable of achieving great results. In this same sense, a CTO appears as an essential figure in the development of any work. After all, being in charge of different responsibilities, it is also essential that he can identify possible errors.
Next, you will discover what are the mistakes that a CTO must avoid , along with their main functions in the day to day of a company.
What is a CTO
First of all, it is essential to define what a CTO is in a company . Also known as Chief Technology Officer or director of technology, it is the person who is in charge of the technological department of a company and is the figure responsible for the developments that are carried out there.
It should be noted that, historically, the CTO performed functions similar to those of the CIO . This figure was known as the Chief Information Officer, who is responsible for the technological systems to work well from the value creation processes and the planning itself, with the aim of identifying new feasible technologies for the institution.
Now, most CTOs today combine functions with CIOs . In other words, they are in charge of planning the best ideas to increase the efficiency of development processes, typical of CIOs. However, they also focus on strategic technology planning, something common in CTOs.
Everything will depend on the size of the company . Those companies with many employees will possibly have the figure of the CIO and the CTO separately. On the other hand, startups or smaller organizations will have a CTO who will be in charge of supervising all the high-tech processes and planning that are carried out.
Especially, this can be seen in what corresponds to the leadership of the technological, development or engineering area. The objective? Increase income, conducting research based on the cost-benefit , the current state of the industry, the possible return on investment and the efficiency when working on different projects.
Functions fulfilled by a CTO in a company
That said, it is important to investigate the functions that a CTO can fulfill within an IT company . Next, we are going to tell you about the most important responsibilities that this leader has within a company, with the aim of increasing results in the short, medium and long term.
Professional management
A good CTO must achieve adequate professional management . What does this mean? Well, he must give all the instructions that the workers must follow to meet the delivery deadlines of certain projects. In addition, it is usually their function to choose the assigned roles in development according to the capacity that each one possesses.
Now, the fact that there is a relatively vertical structure does not mean that the deals must be bad. On the contrary: the good CTO is the one who knows how to inspire and excite people due to the way he acts. For this reason they should almost always have a good resume, since his word denotes authority without being authoritarian.
On the other hand, good personnel management implies knowing how to exploit the capacities of each one of the collaborators . In this way, they must be aware of the knowledge that a certain task requires and see the possible training that is needed to polish each of the existing development objectives.
Project following
Thus, a CTO must follow all projects . This means a double task. On the one hand, they must be aware of all eventualities that arise in the day to day work. Generally, when working with code, there may be features that are difficult to implement.
In this way, the idea is to generate a harmonious work environment , where challenges can be resolved in the best possible way, without the need to generate stress. At the same time, the CTO will also have to be aware of the demands that the client has or of the external news that may arise in the project.
For this reason, this professional must achieve adequate internal work to meet not only delivery deadlines, but also what is expected of this type of development. This is what makes most jobs successful, as the CTO brings a comprehensive view of the needs of the job .
Development of strategic plans
In line with the previous function, it is true that a good CTO needs to plan . Basically, it's about the person who needs to be one step ahead of everyone else. While the collaborators are working in the present, he must also take into account what the future will be like.
In turn, while the collaborators think about the immediate future, he must be planning the distant future . This means, again, a double responsibility. In the first place, it is necessary to evaluate what is happening in the present, to know what could happen in the immediate future of the development of the works.
For example, if there are repeated errors in the development of an application, it is possible that the release will end up being delayed. But that is not all: you will also need to investigate what will happen after the delivery of the final product , since, ultimately, the work done by the agency or the IT group does not end there.
Attract talent for the company
Part of this work for the future is to attract high-quality partners for IT projects . Basically, the CTO usually gives some guidelines on the kind of profile that is needed for different developments. A good CTO does not work on what is urgent, but anticipates the work for the future.
What does this imply? Well, imagine that you are doing a job for a company and you realize that a professional is needed for a specific functionality of the project. If you do not anticipate it clearly, you will have to go to the market to urgently look for a person to join your work, something that can bring complications.
Well, the CTO ensures that workers with a good resume and perfect skills are constantly being attracted to fit into the future projects of the organization. In this sense, all the developments become more harmonious, since everything necessary to face the activities proposed in the work schedule will be available.
Mistakes every CTO should avoid
That said, are you interested in learning about the mistakes every CTO should avoid? Here we tell you the most outstanding:
Lack of vision for the future
As you can imagine, the lack of vision for the future is one of the main problems that CTOs can face . We know: it is difficult to anticipate what may happen in the market. However, being in charge of a department with several professionals, it is always essential to be ahead of the curve.
For example, CTOs need to know what are the new programming languages that can be useful for collaborators. It is not always necessary for the obligation to learn them to arise, but it is recommended that programmers be advised of the possibility of adding new knowledge.
The same happens with certain frameworks, which can completely help the work of employees. Therefore, no matter how good your projects are: you will always need to go one step further and think about the future, to generate a growth spiral that serves to achieve more and more ambitious goals.
Little knowledge of the market and the competition
Directly associated with the previous element appears little knowledge of the current state of the market and even of the competition. The person in charge of the technological department should always have some commercial knowledge , to understand what are the best moments to carry out a certain idea.
In turn, you also have to pay attention to what the competition is doing . First of all, to be inspired: this does not mean plagiarizing an idea, but rather taking into account what other references are doing so that your collaborators have a base on which to work, although always contributing a special identity.
However, it is also very useful to prevent errors . For example, this is very common in video game development. Studios can look at what competing companies do when something goes wrong, such as launching a rushed, buggy video game. Thus, they can have a smoother development and a more successful final product.
Lack of empathy towards the work team
One important aspect should not be forgotten:the CTO should always be a positive reference for employees . Although it is true that it will be the person who will give the guidelines for each of the projects and will have a certain authority in the company, empathy with others must also be considered.
This means knowing that people are human beings and not machines that are only dedicated to obeying. Now, does this mean constantly asking about feelings? Not necessarily. Although emotional support can be positive, it is also necessary to assess what they think about the work methodology.
For this reason, a common mistake of CTOs is not paying attention to the opinions of collaborators . Consequently, the idea is that you can ask them if they feel comfortable with their tasks, if there are things that can be modified and any other aspect that can serve to improve corporate productivity.
Lack of flexibility of work techniques
This aspect is immediately related to the previous one. With the arrival of the home-office and especially in the field of IT development, all work paradigms are changing . Basically, employee satisfaction and comfort are now prioritized, with the aim of improving productivity.
Well, a very common mistake of CTOs is to believe that with greater flexibility of tasks there will be less control . Therefore, some decide to continue with traditional methodologies, working by the hour in the office. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, is it something that contributors really want?
It may be more productive to listen to their opinions and implement new agile work methodologies , based on virtuality and project work, without the need to comply with hours. The key is that the CTO evaluates each alternative and can achieve the balance between business demands and the wishes of the collaborators.
Misuse of MVPs
Here we come to a more technical section, but equally outstanding . Sometimes CTOs want to get a great job done for an MVP. However, this is not always necessary and can even be counterproductive. The reason is simple: the MVP must have the minimum functionalities to demonstrate a prototype of the final release.
The idea is that it can be useful and functional , but without the need to have all the details finished. It should be something that the whole team is proud of, but knowing that there is still a lot to perfect. Therefore, a typical mistake of CTOs is to believe that this element must be 100% polished.
Think of it this way: If the CTO demands that the product be perfect, it will take a long time for something that won't necessarily get customer approval . That said, it is recommended that the main idea be to show the basis of the development and, once the MVP is approved, everything that follows can be developed.
Conclusions
In short, a CTO is an extremely important person for the development of any project . This person is in charge of making many essential decisions for the future of the company and labor productivity, which is why he must consider many aspects on a day-to-day basis.
Although it is impossible not to make mistakes, it is true that all these common mistakes can be analyzed to achieve better results. With this learning, it will undoubtedly be possible to achieve bigger and bigger goals in the short, medium and long term . We hope this article has been helpful to you!
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