Cutter Consortium: Enterprise Suite

The Art of Change: Fractal and Emergent

1 May 2010 19:58:02 GMT

Malan, Ruth; Bredemeyer, Dana | Executive Reports | 01 May 2010 | Enterprise Architecture

This Executive Report by Ruth Malan and Dana Bredemeyer explores the role of enterprise and other architects in highly adaptive, innovative, and agile organizations. We consider the pressures on organizations to master the art of change and present a fractal metaphor for the tandem role of strategy and architecture. Combining a fractal and emergent approach allows for an organic, dynamic way to express organizational intentionality to orchestrate waves of change, while embracing the need to respond extemporaneously and locally to opportunities and changes that demand surges of responsiveness.

http://www.cutter.com/architecture/fulltext/reports/2010/05/index.html

Social Business Intelligence: Why Every Company Needs Social Media

1 Jun 2010 19:56:49 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J.; Schiavone, Vince | Executive Reports | 01 June 2010 | Business Intelligence

This Executive Report by Steve Andriole and Vince Schiavone focuses on the roles that social media can play in the execution of your business strategies and the improvement of your business processes and models. The report describes a process that should lead to the optimization of social media in your company. It recognizes the role that social media can play in improving conventional processes such as marketing, branding, customer service, innovation, training, and R&D, as well as how social media can fundamentally refine old processes for business value. The report also provides a social media optimization blueprint consisting of strategy, architecture, skills assessments, and project slates. Special emphasis is placed on the value of "listening" to internal and external social media. Ultimately, the report argues that social media is a relentless trend that all companies must understand and exploit. There's no hiding from the social media tsunami.

http://www.cutter.com/bia/fulltext/reports/2010/06/index.html

Zen and the Art of the New Social CRM

1 Apr 2010 19:55:57 GMT

Love, Jim | Executive Reports | 01 April 2010 | Business-IT Strategies

A new generation of customer relationship management (CRM) is emerging. Social CRM brings the promise of Web 2.0 together with the allure of social networks. Is this a breakthrough for CRM? Or is it just another case of overpromise and underdeliver? In this Executive Report by Jim Love, we take you through the practical issues involved in making CRM and social CRM a success.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/reports/2010/04/index.html

Revolution in Software: Using Technical Debt Techniques to Govern the Software Development Process

1 Apr 2010 19:54:44 GMT

Gat, Israel | Executive Reports | 01 April 2010 | Agile Project Management

Recent advances in source code analysis techniques enable us to quantify technical debt. By so doing, software quality can be tied to cost and value through a common denominator: the dollar. This tie enables the governing of the software development process with great effectiveness at both the tactical and strategic levels, as we examine in this Executive Report by Israel Gat. Such governance is applicable to any software method/process, enabling "apples to apples" management across a diverse portfolio of projects. It also lends itself to insightful comparisons with industry benchmarks.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/reports/2010/04/index.html

Business Intelligence 2010: Delivering the Goods or Standing Us Up?

1 Jun 2010 19:53:45 GMT

Higgins, Dave | Journals | 01 June 2010 | Cutter IT Journal

Business Intelligence has no doubt come a long way. Everyone certainly has more data in a more timely fashion than they used to (well, almost everyone) — but is it better data? Has BI promised much more than the insight and business objectives it has actually delivered? In this issue we have five articles, with views from several of the BI hills and a couple from some of the valleys.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/2010/06/index.html

Mobile Privacy and Security: The Next Frontier of IT Risk Management

1 Jun 2010 19:50:30 GMT

Piccoli, Gabriele | Journals | 01 June 2010 | Cutter Benchmark Review

In this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we focus at the intersection of three topics discussed previously: mobile technology (Vol. 9, No. 3) on the one hand and privacy (Vol. 6, No. 1) and security (Vol. 5, No. 12) on the other. We do so because we feel that these topics, interesting each on its own, take on renewed relevance when combined. It is undeniable that mobile form factors, from the laptop to the smartphone to the iPad and who knows what next, will continue to gain prominence in the personal and organizational technology arsenal. As they do so, the importance of securing the mobile platform while ensuring the privacy of its users will continue to increase commensurably. In short, given the unabated trends toward continued miniaturization, connectivity, and battery longevity, it is undeniable that mobile security and privacy are only going to grow in importance.

http://www.cutter.com/content/benchmark/fulltext/2010/06/index.html

Webinar: Creating High-Performance Teams Through Kanban

16 Sep 2010 19:49:07 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | Events | 16 September 2010 | Agile Project Management

In this webinar, Cutter Senior Consultant Masa Maeda will give you the foundation to understand what Kanban is about and why it is such an amazing productivity booster.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/kanban.html

Webinar: Reining in Technical Debt

19 Aug 2010 19:47:18 GMT

Gat, Israel; Heintz, John | Events | 19 August 2010 | Agile Project Management

The primary goals of this Reining in Technical Debt webinar are to give you a preliminary understanding how quality can be assessed through technical debt techniques, to familiarize you with state of the art tools for measuring technical debt and to demonstrate how value delivery is affected when the technical debt is not "paid back" promptly.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/technical-debt.html

Value-Added Decisions Need Not Be Cost-Driven

15 Jul 2010 19:45:57 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | E-Mail Advisors | 15 July 2010 | Agile Project Management; Business-IT Strategies; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

It's all about the money! This is one of most common ideas in the minds of enterprise executives. It is one of the tenets that has driven enterprises for decades because, well ... of course, businesses want to make money. Although this is true, that doesn't mean the company and its products or services need to be cost-driven.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100715.html

The BP Oil Spill: Could ERM Have Helped Avoid It? Part I

15 Jul 2010 19:44:45 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 15 July 2010 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business-IT Strategies

BP PLC Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward did not come across very well in his testimony in June before the US House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is looking into the loss of the oil-drilling platform Deepwater Horizon.

Time and time again, Hayward said in response to questions, "I simply was not involved in the decision-making process."

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2010/erm100715.html

Semantics, Pragmatics, Outsourcing Shape 'Net's Future: Part II

15 Jul 2010 19:43:53 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 15 July 2010 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business Intelligence

In my last Advisor on this subject (see "Semantics, Pragmatics, Outsourcing Shape 'Net's Future: Part I," 1 July 2010), I explored the two dimensions of information (semantics and pragmatics) and identified a continuum of tolerance for error in interpretation (from none to a lot). This Advisor concludes with Part II, which focuses on how this model explains what has been going on in computing and what the future holds.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2010/btt100715.html

In Transition to Cloud, Future May Turn Inside-Out

14 Jul 2010 19:42:42 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 14 July 2010 | Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business Intelligence; Innovation

Apple continues to make waves with the iPad and the iPhone. The iPad is probably already a US $2 billion line of business in a scant 80 days. Name another product that generated so much revenue so fast. I am finding how Apple pulled off that feat to be a more significant lesson in the design and engineering of a businesses than the glitz and splash of the iPad usability. Apple is adept at building business models perhaps more so than devices, at least for now.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2010/bit100714.html

Enliven a Project: Get from Architecture to Execution

14 Jul 2010 19:41:43 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 14 July 2010 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies

One of the biggest problems we face as architects is enabling the transition from architectural specification to executing systems. As I've said many times, the value of architecture does not come from creating the architecture, but rather from applying it. By applying it, I mean influencing the selection, analysis, design, and implementation of an enterprise's IT systems. This influence on other enterprise IT processes provides the alignment of IT systems to business strategies, the rationalization and convergence of application, information, and technology portfolios, and the simplification of operations, maintenance, and enhancements.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2010/ea100714.html

For CIOs, Hyperevolution Looms

14 Jul 2010 19:40:54 GMT

Moroney, Patrick E. | E-Mail Advisors | 14 July 2010 | Cutter IT Journal
The January 2010 issue of the Cutter IT Journal ("The Great Recession Fallout: Will CIOs Be Elevated or Exterminated?" Vol. 23, No. 1) focused on the future of the CIO. The article I wrote for the issue (see "Yielding to Darwin: The Evolution of the CIO") offered the advice that the CIO who leads going forward -- paying attention to changing times in technology, business, and global economic shifts -- would be the leader who will thrive at the top of the heap. Since publication of this CITJ issue, the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) has released a 2010 study titled "The Future of Corporate IT," exploring similar territory, as certainly the role of the CIO and the state of corporate IT are inextricably linked. The report cites trends that the CEB predicts will force changes in what corporate IT does and looks like. What should be unsettling for anyone working today in corporate IT is the CEB's prediction that in five years the size of corporate IT will shrink by 75% or more.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2010/itj100714.html

On the Horizon: Looking to the Hybrid Cloud

14 Jul 2010 19:39:56 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. | E-Mail Advisors | 14 July 2010 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Cloud computing continues to gain momentum as a description of service offerings based on a virtualized data center infrastructure and provided over the Internet on an as-needed basis. Public clouds, such as Amazon EC2, first brought attention to this model, followed by private clouds built within an organization, as exemplified by IBM's Blue Cloud initiative. Both public and private clouds have been found to have advantages for the enterprise, but most analysts now agree that the real power of the cloud concept lies in a marriage between the two -- the hybrid cloud.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2010/src100714.html

Greenplum Buy Steers EMC Toward Data Warehousing

13 Jul 2010 19:38:59 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 13 July 2010 | Business Intelligence

EMC Corporation announced it is acquiring data warehousing database vendor Greenplum, Inc. for an undisclosed amount. This deal is important because the addition of Greenplum's analytic database and cloud data warehousing infrastructure offerings will enable EMC to form a new data warehousing/analytics division within its information infrastructure business. In short, this deal will help EMC move beyond being considered primarily as an enterprise information/storage provider, in effect allowing the company to enter the growing market for enterprise data warehousing and analytics products.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2010/bia100713.html

Software Teams Are Changing: Part III -- Check Your Ego at the Door

13 Jul 2010 19:37:17 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates | 13 July 2010 | Agile Project Management

This year's survey studied software development teams at more than 100 software development organizations and collected the same type of data as in the survey six years ago. In this, the third and final Executive Update in the series comparing the results of the two surveys, we begin by examining how the role of team leader is changing and how projects are allocated to teams. We then examine the effect of these changes on the success of team performance, and we attempt to determine whether Weinberg's egoless software developer is becoming more of a reality.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1013.html

Digital Stamps: Anytime, Anywhere Route to Go Postal

13 Jul 2010 19:36:25 GMT

Fernandes, Paulo | Executive Updates | 13 July 2010 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The evolution of information and communications technology made the exchange of information between people become more comfortable, simple, and fast. However, there are still traditional services that experience large difficulties in profiting from some of the advantages offered by this evolution, and postal services are a perfect example.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2010/bttu1007.html

Sports Broadcasting Speeds Innovation

8 Jul 2010 19:35:29 GMT

Maurno, Dann A. | E-Mail Advisors | 08 July 2010 | Innovation

Sports broadcasting is an industry that does not wait for competitors to vet new technology; rather, it rushes to use new technology, and by doing so, creates a more innovative product -- a uniquely compelling, highly rated broadcast.

http://www.cutter.com/content/innovation/fulltext/advisor/2010/iea100708.html

To Help Agile Grow Up, Some Approaches to Process Maturity

8 Jul 2010 19:29:28 GMT

Cuellar, Roland | E-Mail Advisors | 08 July 2010 | Agile Project Management

In my last Advisor (see "Has Agile Grown Up Yet? Assessing the Maturity of Your Process," 24 June 2010), I discussed the need for assessing agile process maturity. This week, I provide some methods for going about performing assessments.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100708.html

Taking Charge: The Rising Power of the Smart Grid

8 Jul 2010 19:28:38 GMT

Ummel, Mitchell; Rosen, Mike; Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 08 July 2010 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

There's a brand-new layer of digital intelligence being conceived on the world's century-old electric power grid by way of your regional electric power utility, through your new smart meter, and extending into your future home and business energy-management systems and smart appliances. It's called the Smart Grid.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2010/btt100708.html

Modernizing Legacy Applications: Fitting the Tool to the Job

8 Jul 2010 19:27:46 GMT

Estes, Don | Executive Updates | 08 July 2010 | Enterprise Architecture

Putting aside rewrites and conversion to a package, there are three primary technical methodologies and technologies for modernizing legacy applications: 1) Rehosting; 2) Code translation (aka "conversion" and "migration"); and 3) Rearchitecting, the newest entry in the field. It's easy to conflate the first two. Some projects are one, some are the other, and some are both.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2010/eau1010.html

Cloud Computing: Separating the Hype from the Reality Webinar

8 Jul 2010 19:26:57 GMT

Ummel, Mitchell | Webinars/Multimedia | 08 July 2010 | Enterprise Architecture; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

The hype around cloud computing is intense. Cutting through it to determine the practical benefits for your enterprise (if there are any) is tricky. If you're looking for a pragmatic, business-based decision-making approach, spend an hour with Cutter's Mitchell Ummel. In his webinar, "Cloud Computing: Separating the Hype from the Reality", he'll show you how you can weigh the strategic opportunities, benefits, the costs and the risks of cloud computing. Mitchell will present a hype-free roadmap for cloud adoption and offer practical guidance, by enterprise size (small, medium, and large-size organizations) and application domains (such as line-of-business applications, development/test environments, peaking capacity, and pilot/proof of concept) for cloud computing adoption.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/webinar/2010/cloud-computing-hype.html

The Greening of the Data Center

8 Jul 2010 19:25:48 GMT

Cohen, Ralph | Executive Updates | 08 July 2010 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

The rapid growth in data center energy consumption, coupled with the relentless increase in the cost of energy, implies that energy efficiency in the data center is no longer the handmaiden of good IT governance, but a principal spearhead of it. While the construction and certification of a data center as green usually entails substantial up-front expense (estimates run from 5%-40%), the resultant reduction in cost of operations and maintenance can be dramatic. Moreover, any organization failing to satisfy societal, employee, investor, customer, and, ultimately, regulatory demands for mitigation of its data center's carbon footprint will risk severe adverse reputational and economic consequences. Thus, the organization has little choice but to pursue abatement of greenhouse gas emissions out of strategic necessity. The data center is a particularly notorious source of conspicuous energy consumption and carbon emissions, in reality and in the popular imagination. Organizations ignore the need to become more responsive to environmental imperatives at their peril.

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/updates/2010/ermu1006.html

Four Express Ways to Put People First

7 Jul 2010 19:24:59 GMT

Furniss, Bob | E-Mail Advisors | 07 July 2010 | Business-IT Strategies

In the chaotic world of IT, frontline leaders sometimes struggle to keep up with the pace. Projects and productivity expectations can push the most important asset -- people -- to the back of the pack. Successful organizations know, however, that no matter how good the technology, it is the people who make it work. When people come first, customers win.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2010/bit100707.html

Manage Risk with a Centralized Technology Compliance Office

7 Jul 2010 19:23:18 GMT

Szpindor, Catherine L. | E-Mail Advisors | 07 July 2010 | Cutter IT Journal

Be honest. How well are you managing your compliance to technical regulations, requirements, policies, and procedures? With the onset of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Customer Propriety Network Information (CPNI), and state privacy regulations, organizations are challenged to manage all of the requirements. Meanwhile, data breaches continue to happen, exposing sensitive corporate financial and proprietary information, including personally identifiable information (PII) of employees and customers. The potential monetary and legal ramifications to a corporation can be significant.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2010/itj100707.html

Lyzasoft: BI and Social Media Done Intelligently

6 Jul 2010 19:22:21 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 06 July 2010 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Recently, I had the chance to check out an interesting company called LyzaSoft, Inc. Why am I excited about LyzaSoft? Because it has made the most innovative use of social media combined with BI of any vendor that I've come across.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2010/bia100706.html

E-Learning Platforms: Using the Past to Proceed to the Future

1 May 2010 19:59:05 GMT

Piccoli, Gabriele | Journals | 01 May 2010 | Cutter Benchmark Review

This month, we have tapped into the expertise and knowledge of two contributors with significant backgrounds in e-learning. On the academic side is Aurelio Ravarini, Senior Assistant Professor of IS at Università Carlo Cattaneo (LIUC, Italy) and Director with LIUC's CETIC, Research Center on Information Systems. Many of you will recall Aurelio as a past contributor to CBR; he was our academic expert on the issues on content management systems (Vol. 6, No. 4) and software as a service (Vol. 9, No. 4 ). Our practitioner author is Gianni Maria Strada, a former HR executive of several US corporations and current Managing Partner of PeoplePoint, a boutique HR consulting firm focused on major organizational change processes. Both contributors have considerable experience with the organizational implementation of software applications and their consequential organizational change processes.

http://www.cutter.com/content/benchmark/fulltext/2010/05/index.html

Project Management: Facing and Engaging in Reality

1 Apr 2010 20:00:14 GMT

Cutter Consortium | Journals | 01 April 2010 | Cutter Benchmark Review

In this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we turn to a topic discussed previously in November 2008 (Vol. 8, No. 11) and July 2007 (Vol. 7, No. 7): project management. As readers of CBR know, we get our inspiration and ideas for topics from two sources. First, we get inspiration from current events, new trends, new technologies, and generally from being aware and plugged into what is going on in the world of IT. At the same time, we maintain a constant ear to the ground and stick with a reality check by being attentive and responsive to the Cutter Consortium client base. We pay close attention to the kinds of jobs that Cutter Consortium Senior Consultants are bidding for and working on. We also monitor the types of requests that Cutter clients make and we apply firsthand research at Cutter Summits held across the globe.

http://www.cutter.com/content/benchmark/fulltext/2010/04/index.html

Business Process Management: Cutter Glossary

1 Apr 2010 19:53:39 GMT

Baudoin, Claude R. | Executive Reports | 01 April 2010 | Enterprise Architecture

Every discipline goes through a phase when the terminology is ambiguous or requires frequent explanations. Business process management (BPM) is currently in that immature state. Existing glossaries are often incomplete (or spill over to cover adjacent concepts), obsolete, biased toward a specific approach, or of limited quality. Therefore, Cutter Consortium has developed a comprehensive, high-quality BPM glossary from a tool- and method-agnostic viewpoint to help clients with their BPM adoption and education efforts. The glossary is presented in this Executive Report by Claude R. Baudoin.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/reports/2010/04/index.html

EA as an Organizational Capability: Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling

1 Mar 2010 19:56:24 GMT

Allen, Paul | Executive Reports | 01 March 2010 | Enterprise Architecture

There is an increasing realization that enterprise architecture (EA) cannot work in technological isolation but must work collaboratively as a capability within the culture of the organization. The EA team should act as one -- albeit key -- cog in the organizational engine with the overall goal of improving the effectiveness of the business itself. This Executive Report examines the critical success factors required for transition to this new model for EA. Readers will learn how to integrate the EA function within the broader picture of demand management, software delivery, IT service management, governance, and external providers; communicate the vision and purpose of EA using accessible graphical techniques such as "iconic maps"; and avoid the bureaucracy that can sometimes be a part of EA and achieve useful, timely, and measurable outcomes.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/reports/2010/03/index.html

Mobilizing for a (Mostly) Mobile Future

1 Mar 2010 19:51:56 GMT

Clarke, Roger | Executive Reports | 01 March 2010 | Business-IT Strategies

People born in the last two decades have grown up with electronic devices in their hands. Their patterns of device use, thought, and behavior are different from those of previous generations. As they become customers and employees, they expect to be able to interact with people and organizations using the devices and interfaces with which they are familiar. Meanwhile, executives, managers, operational staff, and customers from earlier generations will expect to keep using older technologies. Enormous challenges to organizations arise from the transition from wired to wireless, the diversity of apparatus and their patterns of use, the ongoing technological change, the rapid adaptation and convergence, and the security risks that accompany the mobile, wireless world. Those challenges are compounded by the need to support older generations of users and their modes of interaction. This Executive Report by Roger Clarke explores these challenges and the implications they have on business processes, security, authentication, and architectures.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/reports/2010/03/index.html

Governing the Software Process Through SPC Techniques in Conjunction with Technical Debt Metrics

1 Jul 2010 19:49:33 GMT

Gat, Israel | E-Mail Advisors | 01 July 2010 | Agile Project Management

The applicability of statistical process control (SPC) to software development has been debated since 1989, when the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) endorsed its use in the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). Proponents of the use of SPC techniques in software grasped how powerful the techniques could be beyond traditional manufacturing processes. Detractors shrugged their shoulders in exasperation at what seemed like noncompliance with the theoretical underpinnings of SPC. To this very day, the use of SPC techniques in software remains somewhat controversial.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100701.html

Jumping the Walrus: When Risk Management Goes Bad

1 Jul 2010 19:46:31 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 01 July 2010 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business-IT Strategies

Back in the 1970s, there was a very popular show called "Happy Days," starring Ron Howard and Henry Winkler, who played Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli. Five years into the series, an episode aired in which Fonzie is shown improbably water skiing and jumping a shark to show his bravery. A few years later, the phrase "Jumping the Shark" came to mean that point in a television series where the program had reached its peak, and it was going to be all downhill from then on until it got canceled.

I think risk management in the oil industry has reached that moment, except in this case, I think the appropriate phrase is "Jumping the Walrus."

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2010/erm100701.html

Semantics, Pragmatics, Outsourcing Shape 'Net's Future: Part I

1 Jul 2010 19:45:04 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 01 July 2010 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business Intelligence

Recently, I was having a short exchange with Dr. Ken Calvert, chair of our computer science department at University of Kentucky. The topic was relational databases. The question: are they relevant anymore? Do we need still need to teach formal means of describing, searching, and using information? Or can industry get by with less certain but still useful methods for describing, searching, and using information?

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2010/btt100701.html

The Gulf Between Us: The Tyranny of Cost

30 Jun 2010 19:44:10 GMT

Benson, Robert J. | E-Mail Advisors | 30 June 2010 | Business-IT Strategies

Recent media coverage of BP and the spill in the Gulf of Mexico reveals that BP's management decisions and actions have been dominated by cost considerations. Rather than taking lower-risk actions or investing in better solutions, BP apparently took the low road. The low-cost road, that is. We in IT of course are very familiar with this. Some of us Cutter folks have been working recently with clients for whom lower cost is perhaps the only mantra. It's pretty frustrating when clear opportunities for IT business contributions and risk reduction are derailed by managers for whom the only issue is the bottom line -- and the short-term bottom line at that. The result is missed opportunities, higher risks, and skimpy investments and implementations. It's the latter that is most dangerous, when IT initiatives go forward with the lowest-cost solutions. Or, in the case of infrastructure, when critically important risk-reducing IT initiatives don't go forward at all. So what is to be done? This question dominates the current uproar over the Gulf, and much of the direction seems to be toward more governmental review -- that is, more rules and regulations. Is this what we need in IT as well? Probably not. But IT can certainly do things that move the agenda beyond a single-minded focus on cost in decision making. What are these things?

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2010/bit100630.html

Match EA Certification Options with Your Goals

30 Jun 2010 19:43:17 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 30 June 2010 | Enterprise Architecture

Several forces are converging in the industry to spotlight the idea of architecture certification. First, EA has become a commonly accepted practice. As the complexity of IT continues to increase, so does the need for architecture. Yet, few organizations really understand what EA is, how to apply it, or what an architect does. Second, as the demand for architecture increases, there is a desire for some objective measure of an architect's qualifications. Certification helps address these issues by specifying a knowledge base and skill set that defines what an architect does and verifies a person's competency against it. Last, but not least, there is money. Let's face it, there's a lot of money in certification.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2010/ea100630.html

The Challenges to Encourage an Agile HR: A Process of Letting Go

30 Jul 2010 19:42:00 GMT

Sampath, Kalpana; Sampath, J.M. | E-Mail Advisors | 30 June 2010 | Cutter IT Journal; Agile Project Management

A lot of advice has been given about the "how" and "why" of agile. Yet, in human resources (HR), there is still a need for an internal push on several counts. What would enable HR to create and support an agile environment? First, the ability to let go of all the earlier beliefs about people's functions and requirements, and second, a move to experiencing and understanding the agile employee from a different paradigm.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2010/itj100630.html

Key Skills About Compliance Your Outsourcers Should Know

30 Jun 2010 19:41:00 GMT

Szpindor, Catherine L. | E-Mail Advisors | 30 June 2010 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Due to the depressed economy, many companies have sought to streamline processes and reduce staff, leaving many compliance organizations leaner while new regulations and updates to existing regulations continue. The number of employees in your Technology Compliance Office (TCO) should vary based on the size and complexity of your organization, the number of applications/servers, the amount of data, and the type of regulations to which you must comply. You may need to account for additional staffing while you are bringing an organization to compliance; however, once a repeatable compliance model is developed, staffing can be reduced.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2010/src100630.html

Trends in Corporate Data Warehouse Consolidation

29 Jul 2010 19:39:59 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 29 June 2010 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Based on our research over the past few years, it's apparent that the need to consolidate disparate data warehouses and data marts has become an ongoing trend among organizations wanting to upgrade their BI capabilities. According to a Cutter Consortium survey,1 approximately 26% of end-user organizations have either already conducted, or are involved in carrying out, some type of effort to consolidate their data warehouses and data marts.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2010/bia100629.html

The Agile Triangle Evolves as a Lean-Agile Prism

29 Jun 2010 19:39:04 GMT

Maeda, Masa K. | Executive Updates | 29 June 2010 | Agile Project Management

A potential customer who owns lots of commercial real estate asked me to make an assessment of the operations automation software system it has been developing inhouse to control, administer, and service clients at an upscale, long-stay business hotel it opened not long ago. John, the systems manager, has been in charge of the project since its inception, and he began showing me the impressive work he has done single-handedly. As he walked me through the system functionality, the tone of his voice shifted between pride and frustration; the volume of his voice increased as well. Finally, John said, "I don't understand why the hotel staff can't use the system as they should; it is pretty straightforward! I am tired of my pager beeping throughout the night because the staff calls me for every little tiny issue. And most times there is no real issue at all!" Then there was the large number of human errors. John was convinced the problems existed because the hotel staff was unable to use the computers properly.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1012.html

The Debate Surrounding Information Security Outsourcing

29 Jun 2010 19:38:15 GMT

Kim, Justin; Cullen, Sara | Executive Updates | 29 June 2010 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Outsourcing has become an integral part of nearly every organization. Whether it is a small business handing over its bookkeeping to a local accountant or the US military outsourcing its security to private companies, it's happening every day around the globe. One area that many organizations largely outsource is IT, an issue that is hardly controversial today. Except for one component -- information security outsourcing (ISO).

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/updates/2010/srcu1006.html

Learning to Lead Collective Creativity, Part II: Leading So That No One Is Following

24 Jun 2010 19:36:24 GMT

Hjorth, Daniel; Austin, Robert D.; O'Donnell, Shannon | E-Mail Advisors | 24 June 2010 | Innovation; Business-IT Strategies

In our previous Advisor ("Learning to Lead Collective Creativity from Miles Davis," 13 May 2010), we considered jazz legend Miles Davis’s minimalist management style as an example of leading collective creativity through the focused energy of presence. By guiding attention to the intensity of the work, he made space for musicians to alternately take the lead and to develop their responsiveness to one another and the unfolding event of music. We suggested his leadership style enabled the musicians to achieve "ensemble," a particularly immediate and interdependent form of collaboration, which enables a group to act as one coherent responsive entity that is greater than the sum of its parts.

http://www.cutter.com/content/innovation/fulltext/advisor/2010/iea100624.html

Has Agile Grown Up Yet? Assessing the Maturity of Your Process

24 Jun 2010 19:35:27 GMT

Cuellar, Roland | E-Mail Advisors | 24 June 2010 | Agile Project Management

There are good reasons to step back and assess where we are as an organization in our adoption of agile (or any other process model). Executives should concern themselves with these questions:

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100624.html

The Lotto Temptation

23 Jun 2010 19:33:03 GMT

Pritchard, Carl | E-Mail Advisors | 23 June 2010 | Business-IT Strategies; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

The problem that exists is that there's often an enormous disconnect between the people making the decisions and the folks who will ultimately be responsible for making the work happen. And that's a gap that needs to be bridged before we get in line for the next great opportunity. The connection is not a hard one to make, but it's one that has to exist in order to truly know if we're picking up a "winning ticket." The three tests that need to exist are:

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2010/bit100623.html

License to Dream: Should EA Be a Profession?

23 Jun 2010 19:31:36 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 23 June 2010 | Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture continues to grow as a job title, but what does it mean to make the transition from just a title to an actual profession? "Enterprise Architecture: A Professional Practice Guide" (PDF), a recently published position paper from the Center for Advancement of the Enterprise Architecture Profession (CAEAP), provides some ideas.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2010/ea100623.html

Security, Privacy Loom As Key Challenges

23 Jun 2010 19:30:29 GMT

Davis, Christine | E-Mail Advisors | 23 June 2010 | Cutter IT Journal

Security and privacy challenges are growing and will more than likely become a central focus for CEOs and CIOs during this next decade. Most IT organizations have been dealing with challenges in this area for many years; however, the level of risk continues to escalate as our cyberworld becomes more and more complex. Internet crime is up, complaints about cyberattacks are up, and arrests are rare {1}. The defensive approach is not working. During this next decade, I predict organizations will be revamping their operations to make security and privacy one of their highest strategic priorities.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2010/itj100623.html

Text Mining and Data Warehousing for Optimizing Preventative Maintenance

22 Jun 2010 19:29:29 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 22 June 2010 | Business Intelligence

Last month (see "Corporate Use of Text Analysis and Mining Grows," 25 May 2010), I wrote that organizations are showing more interest in using text analysis and mining tools to support their BI efforts. I based my comments on the results of a Cutter Consortium survey [1] that found that approximately one-quarter of end-user organizations surveyed are now analyzing text/unstructured data in some capacity to support their BI efforts. In addition, 18% of these same survey respondents indicated that they now integrate unstructured data into their data warehouses to support their BI initiatives. A joint project between airplane parts manufacturer/distributor B/E Aerospace, data warehouse vendor Teradata Corporation, and text mining and analysis tools vendor Clarabridge, Inc., provides a good example of how organizations are combining text mining and data warehousing.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2010/bia100622.html

IT's Change Imperative: No IT Professional Left Behind

22 Jun 2010 19:28:25 GMT

McGarahan, Peter | Executive Updates | 22 June 2010 | Innovation

Innovative technology advances as well as their applications and possibilities will force a radical change in the traditional IT organization, culture, and profession. The current wave of technology innovation, business trends, and technology spending will pressure the IT organization to accelerate its organizational change plan to survive and thrive. Organizations across the globe are planning for their eventual transformation -- of strategy, structure, people, process, and tools. Are all IT organizations aware, prepared, and committed to make these necessary changes? They can best prepare by taking a fresh perspective and including an organizational change management plan via a facilitated, cross-functional discussion. Focus on what IT should look like in the end and then design a new IT model that can dynamically align IT with the business and the customer service goals that deliver value.

http://www.cutter.com/content/innovation/fulltext/updates/2010/ieau1006.html

New Survey: Innovation in Software Development

21 Jun 2010 15:32:53 GMT

Respond to our survey on Innovation in Software Development and receive a free copy of "Fostering Innovation: What Role Does Agile Software Development Play?"

http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/314487/2d7f/

Bungee Jumping ... System Style: The Risks Complexity Brings to Systems

21 Jun 2010 20:27:22 GMT

Orr, Ken; The Cutter Business Technology Council; Grochow, Jerrold; Margáin, Julio César | Executive Reports | 01 April 2010 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Society is becoming increasingly dependent on complex, technology-rich systems. With increased complexity comes increased potential for disaster, since we currently lack the ability to understand how such large-scale, interconnected systems behave and we cannot appreciate the growing level of systemic risk they present.

http://www.cutter.com/trends/fulltext/reports/2010/04/index.html

BI: Lessons for Business from the Sports World

1 May 2010 20:26:14 GMT

Maurno, Dann A. | Executive Reports | 01 May 2010 | Business Intelligence

Today's BI providers struggle with lightning-fast data mining and presentation -- two things that sports intelligence providers have mastered. The announcer's teleprompter and on-screen graphics prove that information can be both instantaneous and engaging. The sports world has also mastered mining and refining historic data for the highest possible intelligence. This Executive Report by Dann A. Maurno makes the connection between the industries, with strong recommendations for BI providers and users.

http://www.cutter.com/bia/fulltext/reports/2010/05/index.html

Smart Grid Energized! A High-Voltage App on the Internet of Things

1 Feb 2010 20:25:05 GMT

Ummel, Mitchell; Rosen, Mike; Orr, Ken | Executive Reports | 01 February 2010 | Enterprise Architecture

There's a digital revolution descending squarely upon an industry that time (and TCP/IP) nearly forgot: our aging, yet highly reliable, electric utility grid. The Smart Grid is to be borne upon the innovations and technologies of the Internet, melding with traditional electric utility generation, transmission, and distribution protocols of the past century. How will the Smart Grid influence consumers in their use of energy? Who will collectively manage (and secure) the Smart Grid's "digital exhaust"? These, among a host of other compelling questions, are explored within this Executive Report by Mitchell Ummel, Mike Rosen, and Ken Orr.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/reports/2010/02/index.html

Complex Event Processing: Technology, Products, and Applications

1 Apr 2010 20:23:32 GMT

Hall, Curt | Executive Reports | 01 April 2010 | Business Intelligence

Complex event processing (CEP) monitors, aggregates, and analyzes large volumes of events in real (or near real) time across multiple data streams to offer instantaneous insight into live data on markets, transactions, customers, and operations -- thus enabling immediate response and better decision making based on timely information. CEP is generating greater interest as a way to increase operational efficiency. This Executive Report by Curt Hall examines CEP technology, as well as available CEP software vendors and products, and provides an overview of CEP applications.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/reports/2010/04/index.html

The Proven Value of Solution Architecture: Six Sigma for Projects

18 Jun 2010 20:21:37 GMT

Teeuwen, Paul; Slot, Raymond | Executive Updates | 18 June 2010 | Enterprise Architecture

Much has been argued about the value of architecture, but actual proof is generally lacking. As for solution architecture, recent quantitative research has confirmed that this approach not only helps reduce throughput time and budget for IT projects but also leads to a reduction of variance in time and budget, indicating that bringing solution architecture to a project can be viewed as a quality improvement process in line with Six Sigma thinking. In this Executive Update, we'll examine a recent research project to illustrate the benefits of a solution architecture.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2010/eau1009.html

Tracing a Continuum of Trust: Compliance, Cooperation, Collaboration

17 Jun 2010 20:20:47 GMT

Highsmith, Jim | E-Mail Advisors | 17 June 2010 | Agile Project Management

In Coaching Agile Teams, Lyssa Adkins discusses the difference between cooperation and collaboration. I'd like to add another interaction dimension to these two: compliance. These three concepts form a continuum, primarily defined by the degree of trust among members of the project community. Agile teams sometimes get into trouble because a particular practice assumes one level of interaction, while the team is actually operating at another. As an example, a well-functioning Scrum team requires that the development team and the product owner have a collaborative relationship. If that relationship drops back a level, to cooperation, then some of the team activities won't go as desired.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100617.html

Faustian Risk: A Devil of a Bargain

17 Jun 2010 20:19:33 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 17 June 2010 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Fifteen years ago, I wrote an article for IEEE Software called "Are We Developers Liars or Just Fools?" (July 1995). In that article, I asked how optimistic software development estimates can be before we cross over from being "overoptimistic" about what we can deliver, when, and at a particular cost, to just plain lying about them?

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2010/erm100617.html

To Manage Vendor Sources, Time to Eye Strategy

17 Jun 2010 20:18:19 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 17 June 2010 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Vendor management is still the rage. We talked about it a lot when outsourcing trends became clear -- when more and more companies were outsourcing a greater amount of their infrastructure and applications to partners down the street and around the world. The major outsourcing deals of the 20th century were inked in the 1990s. Some of the eagerness way back then can be explained by Y2K fears and some by the maturity of the pitches of the major vendors. Note the difference between maturity of pitches and maturity of delivery competencies themselves: many of the deals of the 1990s were well represented but poorly executed. Those in the know are definitely aware that many of the long-term outsourcing deals signed in the 1990s self-destructed for various predictable reasons: poor performance, higher-than-negotiated costs, and lack of measurement.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2010/btt100617.html

A Sustainability Strategy That BITES -- Creating an Actionable Agenda: Part II

16 Jun 2010 20:09:13 GMT

Murugesan, San | E-Mail Advisors | 16 June 2010 | Business-IT Strategies

In the earlier Advisor in this series ("A Sustainability Strategy That BITES -- Creating an Actionable Agenda: Part I," 2 June 2010), I outlined the need for a business, IT, and environmental sustainability (BITES) strategy and discussed what green IT means and how IT (besides itself being green) as an effective tool or means could help in many different ways to enhance enterprise environmental sustainability. In this Advisor, I discuss an enterprise green IT strategy and how to create and implement it.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2010/bit100616.html

Draining an IT Swamp Calls for EA Vision

16 Jun 2010 20:08:14 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 16 June 2010 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies

Enterprise architecture is not about low-hanging fruit; rather, it is about making sense of an enterprise's IT business processes, databases, applications, and technology. While a few years back it was possible for organizations to manage their IT infrastructure one system at a time, that is no longer true. More and more of our applications are interconnected, share data, and, increasingly, share resources. Indeed, it is impossible in this age of "virtualization" and high-speed communication to say exactly where a given application may be operating and on which data device the data for that application may reside.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2010/ea100616.html

Outsourcing on the Rise in an Uncertain Climate

16 Jun 2010 20:07:08 GMT

Sisco, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 16 June 2010 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Outsourcing is closely tied to an IT organization's staffing plans. Overall, our survey of IT managers suggests that outsourcing is up. In fact, the trend for outsourcing appears to have really caught on. The number of respondents who outsource work now or plan to outsource jumped to 71% in this year's survey. That's up by about 13% from the 2009 survey. The number of respondents who do not outsource nor plan to outsource decreased to 29%. The gap between those who outsource and those who don't shows a dramatic increase in this survey. Last year, it was about 60% to 40%, a 20-point gap. The gap widened to 42 points in 2010, twice what it was; this is a significant change. What this suggests is that companies are becoming more aggressive in identifying the most cost-effective means to get the IT support job handled. It appears that most agree that some form of outsourcing will help them manage IT cost.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2010/src100616.html

Will New Developments Help Spur Greater MapReduce/Hadoop Use in the Enterprise?

15 Jun 2010 20:06:14 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 15 June 2010 | Business Intelligence

There have been a number of recent developments pertaining to the use of MapReduce1 and its open source equivalent, Hadoop.2 These developments are important because they should help spur greater use of MapReduce and Hadoop by traditional enterprises looking to take advantage of their big data assets by implementing applications that can rapidly process vast amounts of data in parallel on large clusters of commodity hardware. These new tools provide organizations with better options for implementing, managing, and using MapReduce applications -- particularly those based on the Hadoop open source implementation.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2010/bia100615.html

Seeking a General IS Strategy During a Recession

10 Jun 2010 20:05:17 GMT

Leidner, Dorothy E. | E-Mail Advisors | 10 June 2010 | Innovation

IS strategy is the organizational perspective on the investment, deployment, use, and management of information systems.1 Even though each individual business and IS executive may have his or her own particular view of IS, organizational IS strategy reflects the collective view shared across the upper echelon of the organization.2 An IS strategy determines if, when, how, and the extent to which a company will innovate with IS.3 Research by Daniel Chen et al. identifies and operationalizes three IS strategies: innovation, conservative, and undefined.4 For our Cutter survey, we borrow the names of these three strategies. Hence, the extent to which an organization pursues a perspective toward IS innovation can be characterized along these lines as (1) IS innovators, (2) IS conservatives, and (3) IS undefined. These are similar to the three business culture concepts defined by Clayton M. Christensen -- (1) first movers, (2) fast followers, and (3) strategic necessity,5 which Thomas references in his article -- but are specific to IS strategy rather than general attributes of a company.

http://www.cutter.com/content/innovation/fulltext/advisor/2010/iea100610.html

Pitfalls of Agile VI: Simplicity

10 Jun 2010 20:04:22 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 10 June 2010 | Agile Project Management
One of the beautiful things about agile is its simplicity: Scrum consists of three roles, three artifacts, and three plus one practices; XP provides 21 practices; and FDD comes on a single sheet of paper. In fact, we have printed an overview of Scrum onto a beer mat. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Just drop us an e-mail, receive a beer coaster for each of your team members, distribute them, and tell everyone you're doing Scrum.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2010/apm100610.html

Oil Spills, Black Swans, and Software Risks

10 Jun 2010 20:03:22 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 10 June 2010 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

A variety of psychological tests have shown that people are bad at estimating risk. A friend of mine who had been the point man for one of the largest computer companies in the world used to say, "The most expensive risks are ones that cost only a few dollars but happen thousands or tens of thousands of times a day, and those that cost billions (trillions) but only happen every 100 or 500 years!"

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2010/btt100610.html

Business Architecture: Expanding the Value Proposition Webinar

10 Jun 2010 20:02:16 GMT

Ulrich, William M. | Webinars/Multimedia | 10 June 2010 | Enterprise Architecture; Business Intelligence

Are you leveraging business architecture to facilitate strategic planning, address executive priorities, deliver customer value, leverage investments in major initiatives and deploy horizontal solutions across business units? If not, you may be underutilizing and undervaluing business architecture. When leveraged effectively, business architecture offers the cross-functional, cross-disciplinary transparency required to deliver bottom line business value. Whether you are jumpstarting your business architecture efforts or have deployments in place, this webinar will discuss how to expand the value proposition of this critical business discipline. Join Cutter Senior Consultant William Ulrich as he discusses how business architecture has been used in practice and how it will evolve long-term.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/webinar/2010/business-architecture-value.html

Corporate Adoption and Usage Trends for High-Performance Analytic Databases

10 Jun 2010 20:00:38 GMT

Hall, Curt | Executive Updates | 10 June 2010 | Business Intelligence

In February and March 2010, Cutter Consortium conducted a survey that asked 99 end-user organizations about their various data warehousing, BI, and other analytic technologies and practices. One set of questions sought to determine corporate adoption and usage trends for high-performance analytic databases.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/updates/2010/biau1006.html

Software Teams Are Changing: Part II -- Two Ways to View a Ball Game

10 Jun 2010 19:59:36 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates | 10 June 2010 | Agile Project Management

This year's survey studied software development teams at more than 100 software development organizations and collected the same type of data as in the survey six years ago. In this, the second in a series of three Executive Updates comparing the results of the two surveys, we begin by examining peer interaction as a team motivator and its effect on team stability. We then look at how software development organizations perceive the importance of team structure and its role in project success. After that, we try to identify areas where software organizations should best invest their energies to improve teamwork.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2010/apmu1011.html

Social Networking Risks and Oversight

10 Jun 2010 19:58:45 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. | Executive Updates | 10 June 2010 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

As social networking and Web 2.0 applications continue to enter the workplace and rise in importance, it is crucial to be aware that they bring new risks along with new opportunities. Although relatively few companies have as yet introduced strong codes for using these applications, the risks of unrestricted access are beginning to become apparent. This is a major growth area, so it is essential that risk issues are examined before practices become embedded in corporate culture and are difficult to change.

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/updates/2010/ermu1005.html