Today, in contrast, Neff's charter and responsibilities as CIO -- as well as those of the city's 460-person IT department -- are clearly laid out. IT supports 52 city departments and agencies. IT program managers have been appointed to oversee the relationship between IT and clusters of similar departments, such as public safety and public works. Neff reports directly to the mayor and serves on his cabinet.

Neff is also the driving force behind Wireless Philadelphia, an ultra-high-profile, fast-moving, multimillion-dollar project to build the biggest municipal wireless Internet system in the country. First announced in April 2004, the project is on time and well under budget ( EarthLink Inc. recently agreed to construct the system at no cost to the city), and five neighborhood pilots are up and running. The 135-square-mile network, which will provide inexpensive high-speed Internet access to everyone citywide, is scheduled to be fully operational by the end of next year.

"The easy part is the technology," Neff says. "The truly hard effort is defining needs, creating a vision that others can understand and embrace, and then developing a road map to achieve that vision."

As counterintuitive as it seems, it's this kind of methodical planning and relentless communication, coupled with the adoption of standard processes and procedures, that works to breed agility, according to Neff and several other of this year's Premier 100 IT Leaders. In other words, agility is very much a matter of design.

Thoughtful speed