It's the nature of CEOs to always be thinking of new ideas to improve the business, and it is the nature of IT to be faced with limited resources for implementing those ideas. This fundamental disconnect can be a major source of frustration for IT executives, unless they realize that the CEO does not expect them to always say "yes," advises consultant Patty Azzarello in a CIOUpdate article.

Not all requests from the boss should be treated equally. "The CEO can seem equally excited or serious about a wide range of ideas. Some are vitally important, others are just musings. It's often hard to tell. They will often forget things that asked for, or change their mind without telling you," Azzarello advises.

Rather than expecting IT executives to be able to do everything that is brought to their attention, CEOs expect them to consider the business strategy in light of the workload, and then offer ideas for prioritizing and managing tasks. 

The trick is to know how to explain to the boss which tasks are most important and present a plan for making sure they are accomplished first.  Explaining which tasks are most valuable to the business and most feasible for the IT group helps a CEO place new ideas in the context of the existing workload. Ultimately this approach is of greater use to a CEO than either ignoring new requests or just agreeing to try to do them all.

As for concrete steps for responding more effectively to the boss' demands, Azzarello recommends starting with a list of all of the requests made and a list of your main strategic priorities. Meet regularly with the boss and offer suggestions on prioritizing the requests in light of the two lists.

"When you show your boss these lists several things happen: They get embarrassed not realizing they have asked for so many things. When they see it spelled out right there in front of them, they can see it's unreasonable," she writes. "You win lots of credibility for keeping the list, catching everything, and not dropping anything. You make them comfortable that you've got it covered. They trust you."

The list-keeping strategy also creates an opportunity to ask whether older requests are still important. In many cases, there will be some that are no longer be important. 

For more:
- see Patty Azzarello's post at CIOUpdate

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Business, not IT, should set priorities
CIO strategy: Find the time and place to just think