Naked CIO: Thank your team

Holidays are about appreciation - so now is the time to show gratitude to your team for all their hard work, says the Naked CIO.

As I review the accomplishments of the last year I can't help but have a sense of pride for my team. I always find it interesting looking back on a year. On the face of it things don't seem that significantly different from 12 months ago - and sometimes I chastise myself, wondering if there was more I could do to impact our effectiveness within our organisation.

Yet as I review goals and objectives I realise that my team, not myself have made extraordinary progress in a variety of key areas. They changed the whole way they did business and while it wasn't easy, they embraced the changes to methodology and approach that I relentlessly drove into them.

They seem much more confident than they did last year about the tasks they perform and their ability to steer IT strategy, operations and deployments. They can deliver products to market faster, set expectations more effectively and manage priorities in a competent way for a complex and ever-changing business.

Materially we have brought many new applications and functions into the business that were not here last year and from which our business has benefited. Unfortunately the bias and prejudicial behaviour against IT from the business is still rampant. It's something I seek to change, although I may not have that power.

As we enter into the New Year I would like to dedicate this article to the people that support us CIOs and drive the change we pontificate about - the people who do the heavy lifting for the big ideas we come up with; the people who handle the problems we create; the people who without which I would be nothing.

Holidays are about appreciation so let us all appreciate our brothers in arms who help us when we are down and who support us during those many crises we have endured over the last 12 months.

2009 will bring more changes and many more difficult decisions, especially in an economy that requires businesses to tighten every belt they can. But that is next year.

Let us not forget our accomplishments this year and celebrate the dedication of the people who devote their lives, including many hours of personal time, to support our business and our vision within the companies we work.

While I may not always be kind and have opinions about just about everything, I do hope my readers and I can agree on one thing: this is a time to appreciate hard work.

For those of you that have an opportunity to do so please show appreciation for those that work for you and around you within the IT department. I am sure they deserve your gratitude for a year in which they worked very hard.