A CIO who combines outstanding technical expertise with leadership can navigate with ease; if either is lacking, the value of the role diminishes significantly.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has long been known for itsblunt recommendations and reminders, and the stories it publishes are not just for the public sector.

The GAO regularly issues plainly worded reports as updates on federal IT and its leaders. In itslatest report on federal CIOs and their responsibilities, the GAO's candor borders on being unsparing.

The latest report found that while most agency CIOs are fulfilling their duties—even parts not mandated by policy—the 24 agencies covered were "not always effective" in implementing core IT policies. The report notes that unless agencies can truly implement these core policies, their ability to carry out "long-term" IT missions will continue to face challenges.

Adam Firestone, chief engineering officer at Secure Channels, Inc., told CIO Dive: "For all CIOs, whether in the public or private sector, the lesson is that the fundamentals of good project and program governance remain the cornerstone, and ignoring them puts the enterprise at risk."

The report shows that none of the 24 federal agencies clearly define CIO responsibilities in a manner "consistent with federal law and guidance." The core policies for the CIO role highlighted by the GAO include IT leadership and accountability, budgeting, information security, investment management, strategic planning, and workforce.

Carol C. Harris, director of IT acquisition management issues at the GAO, told CIO Dive that in some cases, the GAO found agencies were indeed executing certain policies but had not formalized and documented them.

No CIO operates in a silo. Many of the above tendencies are highly similar to existing issues in the private sector. CIOs across industries encounter difficulties in the policy areas listed by the GAO, just in different operating environments. It is time for the private sector to pay attention.

Birds of a feather, shared problems

Private sector CIOs are under no obligation to pick up the GAO report and apply it to their own organizations, but doing so could be helpful. Tammy Alairys, Americas technology transformation leader and principal at EY, told CIO Dive that even setting aside benchmarking, private sector CIOs "might be able to empathize" with the situation of their federal counterparts.

Despite different missions, there are commonalities in CIOs' IT skills and approaches.

Jenifer Williams, executive director of IT advisory services at EY, told CIO Dive that performance metrics in the public and private sectors are highly convergent, yet "I can't recall a time when a private sector CIO proactively asked what is happening in the public sector."

The IT divide between the two sectors persists, causing damage in cybersecurity, talent retention, and modernization. If the relationship between the two were more transparent, both would benefit to some extent, but more change is still needed.

The policies listed by the GAO are designed to help leadership reassess the organization's mission and the path to achieving it. Firestone believes this report serves as a "wake-up call" for all IT professionals, prompting them to embrace a moment of reflection and self-examination.

Firestone suggests asking questions such as "Do our policies echo some of the points listed by the GAO?" and "If there are similarities, are our definitions clear enough?" In this sense, the GAO report can serve as a framework that private organizations loosely reference to build their own review processes.

The frustrations of public and private sector CIOs are also quite similar. According to Harris, many federal CIOs do not report directly to their agency's secretary or deputy secretary, creating a communication vacuum. If CIOs cannot directly reach other executives, they "miss the opportunity to effectively manage IT operations."

Private sector CIOs also need to fight for their voice in the C-suite. But federal CIOs have laws such as theFederal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA)to protect and enhance their authority.

However, legislation does not always ensure they gain real influence among other executives. If a CIO's skills and creativity are insufficient to win influence within the agency, how much can the law help?

Significant differences

Although the GAO is often called the government's "watchdog," Firestone believes this description "may be pejorative and counterproductive." Instead, the GAO should be seen as "a catalyst for promoting a culture of positive introspection... the private sector would benefit greatly from borrowing this."

But for now, private sector CIOs are not truly eager to listen to the government's "watchdog," even if they could be a catalyst.

Although cooperation between the two sectors is needed, the differences do not always favor the private sector. For example, Williams believes the federal government may be ahead of the private sector in more effective and pragmatic applications of emerging technologies, such as blockchain.

Firestone points out that the public sector's constraints from legislation and regulation have fostered its culture of introspection. This self-examination also differs from the usual way the private sector operates.

"This culture may be bred and nurtured in a regulatory 'incubator,' but that by no means makes it inapplicable to the private sector," he said. The cultural differences between the two sectors open the door to "educational synergy." The private sector can exchange its agile culture and adaptability for the public sector's self-analysis capabilities.

Another difference lies in the tenure of CIOs. According to Harris,the average tenure of a private sector CIO is about 4.3 years, while federal CIOs need to serve about three to five years to be effective. However, over the past year and a half,uncertainty in federal IT leadership has increased significantly。

In one month last year, five federal CIOs departed. Such turmoil can lead to unintended consequences, such as stalled projects and loss of momentum. Williams said: "The private sector CIO role is in a more transitional state than the federal government CIO role, which remains fairly traditional." This ultimately stems from the greater flexibility the private sector IT gains from the rapid adoption of the "everything-as-a-service" (XaaS) model.

Government IT is gradually moving toward the XaaS model, but slowly. Rigorous procurement and security processes, as well as some oversight responsibilities of U.S. federal CIOs, are slowing this progress.

Althoughrecruiting is not a major challenge for federal IT, talent retention is a prominent issue, especially when Silicon Valley-style companies become competitors.

Alairys said: "Overall, the private sector will be required to move faster, do more with less, work in a distributed model, and drive new technologies into the organization."