One of the biggest challenges of significant changes is that employees inherently resist change. ITSM is responsible for maintaining and updating an organization’s IT services. It is also focused on responding to incidents and minimizing the impact of disruptions to services. A digitally mature organization, for instance, will have an IT function that is tightly integrated with the rest of the business. On the other hand, a company that is not as digitally mature will likely still have an IT unit that is siloed and viewed as a “back-office” function. In smaller companies, IT leaders will often wear multiple hats.

Thousands of companies are ready to pay larger salaries to keep skilled employees in their ranks, so the challenge is even more significant. There are occasions when it’s necessary to see humans as a production line capable of cranking out N lines at a complexity of M per hour. NTT DATA Services, Kris leads client innovation programs and the IT Strategy Consulting Practice. They include patience and the ability to embrace change, live with ambiguity and work under pressure.

[STARTUP] Business Operations: Organizational Chart — CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER (CMO)

For this reason, it is important to take one’s time to diligently and carefully design the most effective startup org structure. Below we will present our proposed ideal structure of a development team for a tech startup. There are many different roles and titles in software development. What’s important is to think of people as wearing many hats, especially in small teams.

A tech company does not mean everyone will be a software developer. It requires people with other skills to ensure the business operation runs smoothly. Hiring software developers can be challenging if recruiters don’t have technical knowledge.

The Role of a Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

But despite the goal-oriented origins of the C language, various elements of its development make it a fitting language to use for an array of needs. Within the context of programming languages, static type systems involve static type checking where the language checks your code before it is even compiled. Structured programming is a programming paradigm that favors one, singular structure per program.

Regardless of the company, the CTO role is usually where the technology vision and strategy critical to developing or enhancing a company’s products or services are developed. The role of a CTO is also crucial and dynamic here as he or she takes some management-related responsibilities. Not only that, he or she has to ensure the feature deployment pipeline is streamlined to ensure all developers are productive. Other responsibilities include ensuring high uptime and security of the application and provide cost-effective and scalable cloud infrastructure. Innovations are made, and if they stick, soon become industry norms. CTOs study these emerging technologies, working out how these innovations can be used to create cutting edge, marketable products/services.

Making hiring decisions based on cost

Having an ecosystem of partnerships is a great way to de-risk and accelerate innovation. It is important that technology investments are governed well, policies and principles are set and resources are well managed. An important part cto team structure of technology leadership is developing cultural values, ethics (important in AI models), inclusivity, diversity, and addressing gender pay gaps. This leaves the CIO to concentrate on more internally focused technology and systems.

• They will develop cybersecurity policies, coordinate with external cybersecurity firms, implement security software, and perform other cybersecurity-related tasks.
• Set goals for the team member, both short-term and long-term, and identify actionable steps to achieve them.
• Indeed lists a number of tasks a CTO might be expected to carry out.
• However, as technology continued to advance, there was a growing need to separate the CIO job into two roles to ensure a company’s success.
• Brownfield projects are those that have existing code and systems.
• CTOs must have technical acumen — but they must have strong business acumen and be able to show how technology helps achieve business objectives.
• The practices and culture found in a startup are quite different from larger companies.

A CTO with a firm grasp on operations is required to ensure the business runs smoothly. A CTO provides their team with the technology stack they need to build their product and guide the overall technical vision. Understanding the technical requirements of a project is what’s important here. The lead manages the DevOps team, assigns tasks and responsibilities within the team, and controls the workflow.

Business 101

Your processes must work for everyone on the team, especially those that will not follow processes perfectly. A Free Range worker demonstrates communication and writing skills, shares knowledge freely, masters their tools and productivity, and cultivates others through mentorship. Your hiring pipeline should actively test for and evaluate, not only the hard skills, but soft skills too.

Since a CTO should solve engineering problems, a solid development background is required. GDP in 2020; there are over 585,000 technology companies in the U.S.; and tech employees earn 85% more than those in other industries(1). The list of statistics to back the tech industry as a leader in the job market is evident. Further, the chief technology officer (CTO) position is a demanding role that many companies value to establish themselves as leaders in their industries. This complete guide will help you learn the fundamental role of a CTO. And conversely, these specialists have a solid background in providing software development services and leading an engineering team.

Product Strategy: How to Find Product/Market Fit

Meeting new professionals and maintaining professional relationships with industry leaders can influence your career. As long as you have the education and experience under your belt, nurturing professional relationships can lead you to achieve the position you have always wanted. The positions listed here are a few of the most common IT executive positions, though there are others. For more information about CIOs, IT, and organizational structure, see our article covering the C-suite structure. The Chief Data Officer (CDO) is the executive in leveraging an organization’s data.

So as well as being an expert technologist, they are the external face of the technology offering. This is the pyramid-shape chart we assumed you drew while thinking about an option. It’s the most common with the chain of command following a top-down direction. You have the company founders at the top, followed by the supervisors and then the employees.

CTO as Digital Business Leader

Often considered the company’s tech guru or the smartest programmer in the room, the title of CTO alone indicates that the company is doing something big with technology. But as a business grows, the benefits of internalizing these functions also grow. When that time comes, it’s important to have a plan for how you want your IT structure to grow.