Leadership Insight > Scott Griffin

Scott Griffin Talks About Being Boeing CIO and Retiring to Pursue Technology in Not-for-Profit Sector

By Elizabeth M. Ferrarini

Scott Griffin has enjoyed every minute of his 28-year career at Boeing, the world's leading aerospace company with capabilities in both commercial jetliners and military aircraft. During the last eight years of his career, he was CIO of Boeing Information Technology, overseeing a staff of more than 5,000 people, and all of the IT strategy, systems, infrastructure, architecture, and staff throughout the company. His team played an integral role in helping engineers to get Boeing's 787 Dreamliner off the ground. A chapter in Evan Rosen's book, The Culture of Collaboration, chronicles Griffin's real-time interactions with other Boeing executives during the design and manufacturing of Boeing's first 787 Dreamliner. In June 2007, Griffin retired from Boeing, but not from IT. He plans to apply his IT background to the not-for-profit sector.

BTM Institute recently sat down with Griffin to discuss his CIO career at Boeing and to learn more about his forthcoming IT career. Here's what he had to say:

I was CIO of Boeing for the past eight years, and the CIO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes prior to that. We consolidated IT into a single organization a couple of years ago in order to leverage technology across the company and to speed our transition to standard processes and systems. IT Systems and Architecture (which had been part of the business units) and IT Infrastructure (which had been part of Boeing Shared Services) got combined into one IT organization with one CIO.

Q. You chaired the IT Process Council. Describe one key process improvement that you were most pleased with and why?

Boeing IT has a lot to be proud of in the way it made process improvements during the past few years. One improvement in particular would be the outstanding set of collaboration systems (process, IT system and data), which allows Boeing to design concurrently with its key suppliers across geographic boundaries. This is the product of excellent working relationships between IT, engineering, operations, supplier management & procurement and our IT partners (such as Dassault Systemes).

Q. Your mantra seemed to be "to innovate and to inspire." Talking about innovation, about 1/3 of the IT budget was for developing new technologies, while the rest was for maintaining current systems. You wanted to reverse that. If you stayed, what improvements would you have made to the program?

Our mission in Boeing IT is to use IT to support the key objectives of Boeing which are Growth and Productivity. One strategy which jumped out at us was that we needed to increase the percentage of IT dollars that were being spent to develop the systems of the future, and decrease the percentage going to support existing systems. We had begun the journey when I retired. Give it a year and then ask my successor John Hinshaw how Boeing IT is doing on that strategy.

Q. When it came to inspiring future IT leaders, what kinds of things did you do?

Inspiring future IT leaders is one of the most important jobs of any CIO. The Boeing IT Leadership Team met every week as an Executive Skill Team to talk about our progress against this objective. The IT Executive Team sponsored a Boeing IT University, which consisted of a one-week course for future IT leaders. We also had an IS Career Foundation rotation program for new IT recruits, which exposes them to five different IT functions over their first two years a rotation program.

Q. IT went from being a cost center to a value model for decreasing costs of doing business and improving cycle times. How did this model change the governance process? Did it create the IT Investment Board?

The "six million dollar question" for all CIOs is how to prove the value of IT. There are many components how to create a solid business case for a new project, when to reject a business case, how to source/manage the project, how to measure the projects progress while it is in development, how to deploy new processes and systems, how to measure promised benefits once deployed, and when to sunset. At Boeing IT we addressed each of these components. On the front end, we created an IT Investment Board which brought together the process or leaders (e.g. engineering, manufacturing, finance) and IT leaders to jointly create a business case and then called them together periodically to see if the business benefits were being realized.

Q. Today CIOs are bouncing from one company to another. You've spent most of your entire career at Boeing. How difficult was it for you to arrive at the decision to move in another direction?

I worked for Boeing for 28 years. I actually had three careers customer services, avionics and IT and was fortunate to hold leadership positions in the defense, commercial airplanes and corporate parts of the business. I wouldn't trade one minute of it. My decision to move back into non-profits full time was not an if decision, it was a when decision.

Q. What was the one thing that really propelled you to make the decision to go in this new direction?

Peter Drucker’s book Managing the Nonprofit Organization had the greatest influence on the when decision. He divides the world into three segments business (for profit), government and non-profits. He says that non-profits are central to American society and are indeed its most distinguishing feature, and I agree with him. He points out that The non-profit organization exists to bring about a change in individuals and in society. Lofty goals!

Drucker posed the following question, What do you want to be remembered for? That turned my when into now. I decided that I wanted to apply my IT experience to this distinguishing feature of American society. I am not leaving IT. I want to apply my IT knowledge and experience to bring about a change in individuals and society.

When I interviewed for the Seattle University Masters in Non-Profit Leadership Program, I told them I already had an idea for my final project, or Masters Thesis. I want to start a non-profit organization which does IT strategy consulting (not desktop support, but real process and systems re-engineering) for non-profits at no charge. I may change my approach over the course of the two-year program, but the need is real. IT can further the mission of a non-profit in the same way it enables growth and productivity for a company like Boeing.

I left a top notch IT executive team at Boeing. With John Hinshaw, the new Boeing CIO, they will move forward with IT initiatives of their own. I will watch with interest as Boeing IT helps chart the course for Boeing in the years ahead.

Q. You've been involved in the Research Board with other Fortune 500 CIOs and the CIO Strategy Exchange. How did you benefit professionally and personally from these organizations?

Global 100 CIOs have the same need to network and benchmark as any other CIO. There's a great deal to be learned by studying the best practices (and frankly, the mistakes) of other companies inside and outside of one’s own vertical. Both the Research Board and CIO Strategy Exchange provide an opportunity to do so outside of the earshot of IT consultants and IT service providers. They bring in the CEOs of both large IT companies and of startups, and provide CIOs with a forum for IT strategy dialogue. They also allow any member to pose a research or survey question to their peers. This is an enormously powerful tool for a CIO. By the way, I have decided to stay on the Research Board as an alumni.

Q. What types of involvement have you had with not-for-profits? And how do you plan to use your leadership skills and IT experience in this sector?

My wife and I graduated from Fresno State University in 1976 and set out to see America. We had both traveled internationally during college, but a long list of people and sites we wanted to visit in the U.S. We did not expect to end up living in Everett, Washington (down the street from the Boeing 747 assembly plant) working in a non-profit group home as house parents for troubled teenage girls, but that's where we ended up. We decided that we wanted to give something back to our community and that our professional careers could wait. It was hard, but rewarding work. I saw that non-profits could successfully fill gaps in government provided services.

I decided to approach the not-for-profit sector the same way I pursued the for-profit sector. My MBA in 1982 prepared me for a management career at Boeing. I have enrolled in the SU program to prepare me for a leadership role in non-profits. The Masters in Non-Profit Leadership program is one of only six such programs in the US. Courses tailored to the not-for-profit sector include Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations, and Resource Development for Nonprofit Organizations. I’m toying with writing an article called, What Business School Does Not Teach You about Leading Non-Profits.

During my 28 years with Boeing I had an opportunity to serve on the Boards of some great non-profit organizations the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the Institute of Business and Technology Ethics, my local church, etc. and I have been a volunteer for many others. In a sense, my return to the non-profit sector is a return to that same sentiment that Mary and I felt in 1977. I want to give something back to my community and play my part in bringing about change. That's what I want to be remembered for.

Elizabeth M. Ferrarini is a writer from Boston, Massachusetts. Reach her at elizabethferrarini@yahoo.com.