Published on the 03/10/2024 | Written by Heather Wright

Or lessons from Admiral Nelson…

“We are all searching for that secret CIO leadership skillset. I say stick to the basics,” Charles McHardie AM says.

The chief information and digital officer for Services Australia, McHardie is a big fan of warships and battle history says called on CIOs to take some lessons from Admiral Nelson in the Battle of Trafalgar in order to lead for resilience in turbulent times.

“When we focus on innovation, it is not just about technology.”

Nelson won against a ‘numerically superior’ French and Spanish force in 1805.

“He won that decisive battle by leveraging people, process and technology. It was a complete system,” McHardie says.

“The reason the British did so well against their adversaries in 1805 was that they had more motivated sailors, stronger navigational systems, better conditions on ships. They had drilled and drilled on the process side, they were much faster, 100 times faster, in some of their activities in their warships, including twice as fast reloading cannons.”

Their tech advantage came in the sailing performance of their ships. And, McHardie notes, one of their key innovations was mastering scurvy.

“So when we focus on innovation, it is not just about technology.”

The CIO of today isn’t facing battles on high seas – or scurvy – but the challenges and expectations on ICT teams and CIOs are considerable, he says.

“We also face a contemporary wave of turbulence which will test our resilience.”

The dynamic, ever-changing ICT landscape, data breaches, system outages and increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, extreme weather, changing board members, new products and competitors, rapidly changing markets and wider geopolitical influences can all create turbulence.

“As the CIDO for Services Australia, a bad day at the technology office is a bad day for Australia,” McHardie notes. “Our services touch the lives of all Australians and any interruption to these services has a significant impact on our customers, many of who are in vulnerable situations.”

McHardie says building resiience means asking the big questions about the environment you’re operating in, the risk to your people, teams and infrastructure and your wider systems, and knowing where you’re deficient.

“Asking the right questions means being informed. The better informed you are the better decisions you will be able to make to lead your teams through times of uncertainty or turbulence and build resilience.”

Balancing the need for fast adoption and innovating for excellence against risk to the core business is a key requirement, with a need for due diligence around governance and ensuring the right assurance processes are in place to support adaptation.

“But we can’t ponder these forever or we will find ourselves left behind.”

He called on CIOs to be constantly evaluating threats, changing missions and evolving tactics, techniques and procedures across people, process and technology plains.

“You may say don’t have enough funding or resources, you may be coping with legacy tech, but we always will be.”

When Nelson sailed in the Battle Trafalgar, he didn’t have new ships and sailed ships of all different capabilities,  but he knew their vulnerabilities – knowing the ships that couldn’t sail close to the winds, and the ships with vulnerable sterns  which he protected in the formations that he bore against the French..

“Therefore for you as CIOs, know your fleet, know your systems – put your own strategies in place to mitigate risk which will not always be a technology solution.”

For McHardie, knowing his ship means looking at systems and considering what happens if products fail – who will be called if an SaaS product fails, what support looks like for staff and customers when they’re back to filling out web forms.

“Larger customers may be able to build out really strong contact and support functions into their contract, but it is not always an option for smaller customers. The development and management of contracts becomes essential to ensure your vital standards are being met because you become reliant on the vendors to fix issues, and at the mercy of their teams to fix within your timeframes and priority.”

Developing software in-house doesn’t guarantee no failures, but it does mean more control around how failures are investigated and resolved.

Services Australia spreads the risk by running hybrid models with some systems delivered completely by third-parties, through to systems built completely in-house and maintained on its own infrastructure.

“However, working hybrid brings own complexities through integration and getting the balance right is crucial.”

Services Australia is currently completing an ICT architecture review to shape its 10-year technology sustainability approach, planning McHardie says will help it design resilient systems for turbulent times ahead.

Knowing your ship also requires knowing your ‘gear’ he says.

“One advantage of using third party vendors is it allows the CIO to focus on the business of delivering value.

“But make sure you are asking the big questions. Just because it is on cloud, is it more secure and resilient, can you control your own data? Does the solution meet the ASD requirements for cybersecurity? Just because it is on the cloud doesn’t guarantee the solution is more cost effective either. There’s the risk of product dependency and future price rises that you may not have control over.”

Investing strongly in relationships with third-party vendors and negotiating the right contract and managing it, was key – but also means investing in the skillsets of your own workforce.

“Technologists need to adapt and uplift contract management skillsets – are you de-risking your technologists?,” he says.

“Due dilliengece is important because at the end of the day if you purchase a service as the CIO you are accountable for the outcomes, good or bad.

“You can’t outsource accountability.”

Investing in your people, understanding skills gaps and having a workforce management plan for attracting, building and retaining internal capability and building resilience by investing in a strong technology workforce with upskilling and cross skilling was also important for resilience.

“That takes me to teams.

It’s clear that collaboration is key in the technology space. Across technology to digital programs, having teams I trust and work closely with has helped to deliver system resiliency for Services Australia, whether network, infrastructure, applications themselves or databases.

He’s a passionate advocate for the ‘just culture’ championed by the aviation sector, designed to create a culture of trust when everyone can report openly, and without fear of being blamed for making honest mistakes.

“Even Nelson did this – despite it being the days of sail when sailors were flogged, he was known for engagement with captains to know weaknesses in teams and ships. He knew the unknown unknowns.

“For us we have got to rely on our poeple to raise problems, celebrate that it has happened, fix it and learn from the lessons because that is how we keep our systems running safely and with resiliency.”