I also agree with previous comments that I would like to see more open source software from the Church. I am confident that there are competent programmers who would gladly, voluntarily compile PAF to run on linux (for example) if given access to the code.

I have now created the CIO in three very different organizations – Times Mirror, BYU, and the Church. When I was asked to be the CIO at the Church I suggested that this ought to be about a five year tour of duty. Part of my thinking was to make sure the Church got some new blood on a regular basis, and part was selfish – I did not want to retire at headquarters and had delusions of returning to the classroom some day to terrorize more students like Michelle or mercifully doing something else entirely different.

About three years ago Joel was hired at headquarters to build and lead a product management group. Within weeks it was obvious that Joel had much more to offer. Within a few months I had asked him to join me in the CIO office and help build a world class IT organization. During this time I had a son that was at the end of a life-long, 23 year, battle with heart disease. Joel was a literal godsend as I spent as much time as I could with my son and family during a six month period working remotely from home.

After Benjamin’s passing (May 2005) I found myself thinking a lot about the future. Working with Joel was an absolute joy. I have never worked with anyone with whom I had more fun, worked harder, had better debates (and thereby made better decisions), and trusted more in every sense of the word. Joel’s capacity and heart are simply exemplary. But, the passing of a loved one makes one think about what is really important and what you really want to do going forward. Staring at your 49th birthday also is a little sobering.

By the end of 2005 I knew it was time to make a change. I felt that I was holding back both the Church and Joel by being the CIO. Joel had more experience in instilling the product discipline, which was something I felt was incredibly important to the Church, and had quickly gotten his arms around the job and the organization.

In January 2006 the Presiding Bishopric asked me to take on a special assignment looking at the global bishopric operation and opportunities for improvement. That assignment ended in May 2006 and they asked me to resume my role as CIO (Joel had been acting CIO during this period and was doing terrific). By this time I felt it was time to resign and pursue some other career options and let Joel take the Church CIO job to the next level. I had finalized an agreement to join VitalSmarts (www.vitalsmarts.com) which is an organization I have grown to respect and believe is doing enormous good in the world. I was excited to be part of their team. So, I tendered my resignation to the presiding bishop.

A few days later I was asked to consider filling the role of Managing Director of the Priesthood Department for the Church. Frankly, you could have knocked me over with a feather. That was the last thing I would have thought of doing. The Brethren were very careful in making sure I understood this was not a calling and that they would support whatever decision I made. After a nice walk up Provo canyon with my wife Lyn, it was clear what we were to do.

I often get the question now, “What is the Priesthood Department?” I will save that for another day as I have probably bored everyone to death as it is and have used up whatever disk space Joel would allocate to me. One note of possible interest is the Priesthood Department is responsible for a few websites such as Serving in the Church, Home and Family, and Local Unit Website. We are in the process of hiring a product management group to help us rethink these sites and I would welcome any feedback or ideas on the sites. Maybe Joel will let me share some thoughts on his blog in the next few months about where we are headed and get some more good feedback from everyone. Bottom line is, we know there is a lot of work to do to make the sites truly useful to a global church.

One of the best parts of my new job is I get to continue to work with Joel. However, I do not miss worrying about whether the network is up, whether the conference broadcast is OK, whether lds.org is up Sunday morning for the lesson prep rush, whether all the projects are on time, on budget, and meeting specifications…I don’t rub that in to Joel very often I also get to be one of Joel’s most endearing customers – which he absolutely loves!

I was told a long time ago when I first was given an executive position that the real mark of success as an executive is whether you have groomed your replacement. There are several things I would have done differently in my career, and many more that others would likely point out as well, but hiring Joel as my right hand is the best decision I ever made professionally. I think all of you are seeing how good the decision was.

I continue to be involved somewhat in the profession. I am on the board of directors of Neumont University (www.neumont.edu) which allows me to stay somewhat involved in technology education – this is the most innovative technology education effort I know of. Dave Duffield (PeopleSoft founder) asked me to help in an advisory role for a new company he has started named Workday (www.workday.com), and I do some work as a research fellow with The Research Board (www.researchboard.com). The local chapter of SIM (Society for Information Management – http://www.simutah.org) is kind enough to let me attend a few events ocassionally as well.

Other than that I am a has been CIO that is trying to learn a whole new role. And I am having the time of my life. Lyn and I now have five grandchildren and are busily trying to spoil every one of them.

And that’s all I have to say about that…

PS – if anyone is interested in continuing the conversation offline you can reach me at dennael@ldschurch.org or eric@byu.net or eric.denna@gmail.com.

The Church is digitizing more video and establishing standards and getting intellectual property clearances so we can post more on Church sites. You’ll see a lot more video over the next few months.

Later this year, we hope to have authentication in place so we can provide more video to specific audiences, like leadership training broadcasts.

My only comment on this post is that some things don’t require world class dollars. I wish you the best of luck in managing accountability for IT spending.

I must admit I smiled at this question because it just shows the magnitude of the church and the challenge Br. Dehlin has when having to decide on what to do next.
We are many IT pro’s who can see the huge benefits of using IT but it is no good to go all the way with it when so many people in the world still dont see the benefit of them.
I like the example of the Californian Bishopric because I too created and used a system where my counsellors and I could run the branch on our computers but a few years later I received new counsellors and the comment “I didnt get those email updates” became too frequent and so it was back to drawing board to find another way that would fit my new counsellors better. They served so well and got much done. They just weren’t uptodate with computers even though they tried hard.
In work life you will have to demonstrate IT skills if the job requires it or you wont keep the job but in the church the requirements for membership and serving in callings are (thankfully) different and for that reason I can imagine Br. Dehlin’s task to be so much more complicated.
I do enjoy reading the blog and also the many comments as we can all learn so much more no matter how much we already know.

Michael – if they post at northtemple then they’re in our organization.

Rolf – accountability? Accountability in I.T. is a hard thing for any organization. It’s particularly difficult with a organization where the demonitator isn’t necessarily $$. We’re taking baby steps and holding ourselves accountable for budget, schedule and scope committments. Next we’re trying to do better at holding ourselves accountable for having the business/technical solution actually deliver on the original business proposition. It’s very tough, but we’re trying to find better ways.

Lincoln – Not all people even want computers. Some find them a hindrance. You see the difficulty in the I.T. challenge.

Michelle – As a matter fact, we do hire process consultants! Send your information through our jobs web site… In particular we’re looking for someone to manage our team of process designers.

Alan,
I wouldn’t say it’s a completely meaningless term, although I know what you mean. It seems to me, though, that Joel is sharing some of the elements of what they think “world class” means.

Perhaps aiming for “world-class” is more of use internally for motivational purposes, rather than for external (comparative, relative) purposes. Is it meaningless if it gets people to think beyond where they are now? Fluff can have a place, IMO, if it can get people fired up to make things happen in non-fluffy ways.

I think striving for “world class” also communicates to those of us who are reading the commitment to something beyond the status quo. Even though I don’t have a specific standard in mind when I hear that this is what the Church is aiming for, it’s gratifying to me to hear that they have a desire to not sit on their laurels.

Admintedly, we have small, intimate team and nowhere near the magnitude of systems and services. However, our company culture is that high quality leads to success, even at the expense of speed, or revenue in our case.

We constantly ask ourselves if our designs and purchases contribute to our company goals and values, to our architectural principles, and to our ethical standards for “the best”.

Often we make decisions on limited information, but that is why we prepare for so long beforehand–to ensure our decisions are likely good ones. The metaphor of faith may not apply so well in a strictly business environment with a decidedly worldly purpose, but I think it still holds.

Better video on demand of Church broadcasts. I know we have clips of general conference that we can watch, but what about leadership training broadcasts? Can’t there be some kind of authentication mechanism so leaders can watch leadership training broadcasts on their PC? It would also be nice to be able to save video clips to a laptop and take them to meetings and show to the attendees (like stake leadership training meetings or Saturday evening stake conferences).

I have not been able to get my user ID to log into my ward website working, and I was even the membership clerk. I tried calling someone, there in Salt Lake, but I didn’t have time for much runaround, so I gave up on that. I am still unable to log into my ward’s web site. From time to time, my ward leaders tell us about something on the ward web site, at which point I say to myself, “Well I guess that is something I won’t be able to look into, not because I don’t know how to use the Internet or enter a user ID and password, but because there is some funky combination they are looking for that I am not going to try and hack into and figure out.”

I would like to see general authorities send e-mails to the general church membership. That would be invigorating.

Can you not release the Ward Membership and Financial system (I’m talking about the system, not the data) to the open source community, to let them refine, manipulate, and improve it for free? What about the Church’s web sites (lds.org, mormon.org)? Can you open them up somehow to the open source community and give us in the hinderlands service opportunities besides helping people move and cleaning the church?