- Board members don’t know what it is exactly that they want to know about or how to talk to IT. 

- Boards number one request is having board members with strong IT skills but don’t really talk to their CIO. Often they want a translator. 

- Board engagements need to be brief, open, accurate, relevant and diplomatic. 

- Each interaction with the board is a opportunity to get fired - going off the reservation is not a good idea. The board need to view you as a business leader not the guy who runs the servers and networks. 

-  Do some background on board members to understand where they are coming from to best engage with them. 

- Boards want to know risks & costs are managed and that IT is under control.  Many CIOs only meet with the audit committee for compliance or around major projects. 

- It more important to be interesting than complete. Most technology conversations are not very interesting to boards, innovation is. There is no such thing as a happy surprise in board meetings. 

- Boards care about three things: top line growth, bottom line savings and risk management. IT investments need to be framed against this criteria. Maintaining a balanced portfolio is important. 

- Using portfolio investment buckets is useful to separate growth, commodity, compliance and innovation investments. Each organization needs to find the right balance of buckets. 

- Spending only on shiny objects builds a house of cards which is unsustainable. 

- IT people can be reluctant about admitting to not having done something before and so appropriate risk mitigations cannot be put in place. 

- Providing interpretation of data to board members focuses conversations and reduce potential for misinterpretation. Show patterns of investment and cause & effect at a strategic level - get out of the detail. 

- Most boards have become very risk focussed in the current economic climate. They also want TCO numbers they can trust. Boards forgive errors in ROI but not in cost estimates. IT costs aren’t just software and hardware, boards need true costs of IT investments.