Few companies with under two hundred staff can justify a full-time chief technology officer. Most of them still need what one does: somebody who owns the technology decisions, understands the business well enough to make them, and is around to answer for the result.
Signs the role is missing
- Technology is bought when a salesperson calls or when something breaks.
- Nobody can produce a list of the systems the company depends on and what each one costs.
- The person who “does IT” has another job, or has left.
- Vendors disagree with each other and there is no one to referee.
- A customer, auditor or insurer asks a security question and nobody can answer it.
What a fractional CTO does
A fractional CTO does the same job for a few hours a month. They sit in on leadership conversations, keep a roadmap and a budget, review what vendors propose, and make sure the basics are in place: backups, security, documentation and a plan for when a key person or system is unavailable.
Strategy and support under one roof
Advice is easy to give when someone else has to carry it out. We prefer the arrangement where the people who set the direction also run the day-to-day IT. They live with their own recommendations, and they hear about problems from the help desk before those problems reach the leadership meeting.
Questions to ask a provider
- Who, by name, will I be dealing with?
- Will I get a written roadmap, and how often is it reviewed?
- Do you earn commission on anything you recommend? If so, on what?
- What happens to our documentation and passwords if we part ways?
Related service: IT & CTO/CIO management.