For crisis preparation, it is important to plan so that everyone understands their role when a crisis occurs.

Understanding the alert and enacting a plan quickly is crucial, as it is impossible to plan for everything.

For any crisis response, psychological safety is essential to ensure the security team can protect against any potential breaches effectively. 

Despite disruptions, resilience is the key to maintaining a stable business environment. Trust and executive understanding lead to shared accountability. 

In this community interview, Rowan Dollar – Chief Information Officer at Catholic Education Office Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, explains that executives in the C-suite must be transparent in their decisions.

In this way, anyone can understand the decision-making process, from an executive to a school administrator. The result is better buy-in. 

The principal is the ultimate decision maker in a school, so it is crucial to influence their indirect stakeholders, such as CFOs, CEOs, and parents. Building trust with all stakeholders requires stable and sustainable principles. 

Build relationships with people in your environment and learn about their problems. Do not use acronyms or technical solutions to solve problems that do not exist, as this can lead to distrust.  

 

Key Takeaways: 

  • Working with teachers and administrators, respect their intelligence and their domains to build engagement and trust. There are challenges such as technical and business readiness. To overcome these challenges, be prepared to answer questions and adapt to changes.  
  • My mandate is to improve outcomes for students and teachers in classrooms. If we are working on something that is not doing that, then we should not be working on it. 
  • We need to understand what the crisis alert means, which requires us to implement the plan we have devised. In many cases, you will need to be agile and adapt since you cannot plan for every outcome. 
Contributors
Shane Hill Principal Research Analyst
Shane Hill is part of ADAPT’s Strategic Research and Advisory team. As Principal Research Analyst, he produces pragmatic insights tailored to the... More

Shane Hill is part of ADAPT’s Strategic Research and Advisory team. As Principal Research Analyst, he produces pragmatic insights tailored to the specific needs of technology leaders in Australia and New Zealand.

Hill has worked in technology delivery and market intelligence roles for the past 15 years. His expertise encompasses automation, data science, and machine learning domains. He focuses on how emerging technologies will impact the business models, frameworks, and operations of end-user and vendor organisations.

Formerly of Gartner and with IT services experience across multiple jurisdictions, Shane has led business transformation, technology modernisation, vendor management, and advisory programs for leading consultancies, major corporates, government agencies, and boutique firms.

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Rowan Dollar Chief Information Officer at Catholic Education Office Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn
Named in the top 20 CIOs in Australia in 2018, Rowan is an acknowledged thought leader, innovator and sought-after advisor across the... More

Named in the top 20 CIOs in Australia in 2018, Rowan is an acknowledged thought leader, innovator and sought-after advisor across the corporate spectrum. Rowan’s current role sees him responsible for providing strategic leadership as well as the delivery of business-focused technology outcomes across the digital landscape and through legacy systems, data analytics, AI and automation and security enabling the Department of Human Services (SA) to supply efficient services to the most vulnerable people in our society.

With a technology career spanning 35 years, Rowan’s reputation for technology leadership is widely recognised across private and public sectors. As business, government and our society become more dependent on technology enablement, automation and artificial intelligence, Rowan is a vigorous proponent of a user centred approach with ethics and security integral as part of the technology DNA.

A people focussed leader, Rowan is keenly aware of the power that cognitive diversity brings to the decision and design table. He believes that it’s an exciting time to be part of the tech industry but with that comes great responsibility for the future.

Prior to this role, Rowan was a Chief Information Officer for the Northern Territory Government, where he was best known for his AI and Wi-Fi innovations. He currently sits on the board of the Melaleuca Refugee Centre, an organisation assisting the survivors of torture and trauma to become part of Australian society.

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Security