Jennifer Scanlon is Vice President and CIO of USG Corporation, and one of the winners of this year’s “WITI Excellence in Corporate IT Leadership” Award in Chicago. As CIO, her responsibility is to establish the technological vision of her company. Yet it takes more than just a tech savvy knowledge base to do this. It entails leadership responsibilities as well.

“Technology alone does not comprise a vision,” says Scanlon. “Leaders understand that a single tool cannot provide a vision. It is what a leader plans to do with the tools in his or her arsenal that becomes the vision.”

However, executing a vision is not an easy process. It requires determination, communication, planning, and patience. Scanlon learned this first hand at USG through the management of LinX. This was a four-year project that positioned USG to improve customer satisfaction and increase operational efficiencies across manufacturing, sales, supply-chain, and customer service functions. LinX implemented Oracle-based solutions across over 70 North American sites.

Through projects such as LinX, Scanlon has accrued significant knowledge on just how to implement a vision. Recently, she reviewed her practices and was able to outline them into a five-step execution process.

Large Projects Leadership: Vision and Execution

Leadership requires a call to action and a sense of urgency to support the vision. The vision has to articulate an aspiration that people want to attain. The simpler it is, the better it will be. This is especially true concerning technology topics, which few people outside of IT really want to hear.

A single page can become a simple story of how technology could be used to fulfill an aspiration. A single sentence should clearly illustrate the situation: for example: “Our customers have high expectations. Not only do we need to meet them, we must exceed them.”

Often the single page can become “the million dollar slide.” Every IT leader in corporate America needs a “million dollar slide.” It is the slide that can be referenced time and time again to demonstrate and justify why the requested funding is needed to fulfill a specific vision and deliver specific results.