“You’re too old, what would you know” is a comment that I hear occasionally.
And it is true that I am at the “mature” end of the spectrum.
But to quote the Australian Interim Executives Association (of which I am a Fellow) – “Experience is not something you can Google”
CEO’s need to sign off on most strategies and I have found that CEO’s are usually around my age and are more inclined to believe and relate to someone their age with 20+ years of experience doing strategies for large government agencies rather than a young technical staffer.
A good GIS Strategy should change the business – that usually takes guts to develop and guts to present in a manner that the CEO is comfortable with, particularly if there are a large amount of dollars involved.
So in addition to a consultant bringing lots of experience from other projects, s/he does not have the baggage of an employee and can ask the tough questions, that is, the questions that an employee would think “I can’t ask him/her that – I’ll be sacked.”
So how focused is your GIS Strategy on your business and will it deliver benefits to the business that are measurable in business, not technical, terms?
