As organizations rediscover that it costs far more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one, there appears to be a marked increase in assessing customers' experience. In this regard, customer surveys and focus groups are the typical tools of the trade.

With the US presidential election now being over, the results have been dissected by the pundits, political analysts, pollsters, and politicos. One of the most significant elements to emerge is the use of sophisticated analytics and Big Data -- in every aspect of both the Obama and Romney campaigns.

There has been a lot of discussion about the need for organizations to adopt tablet devices (e.g., iPad, Android-based, PlayBook) to enable their employees to communicate via email, participate in mobile conferencing, and to access, view, and interact with corporate data via reports, dashboards, and other functionality while o

I have recently confronted a need to revisit these topics. To remount, if you will, my hobbyhorse. Industrial thinking and methods, never quiet for long, seem poised to make further advances in the ongoing struggle to standardize work (of the many) for the convenience of those in charge (the few). I believe we should resist whenever we can.

My practice tends to be a little bifocal with respect to the size of the clients. On the one hand, agile, technical debt, software governance, and devops engagements tend to be of significant scale and scope. On the other hand, technical due diligence engagements I carry out for various venture capitalists are typically concerned with startups.

For years I have been expecting a new device to come along and impact the way we design enterprise applications, and I think that era is upon us now. But let's take a step back for a minute and review what we have done to prepare for this inevitable evolution.

[From the Editor: This week's Cutter IT Advisor is from Cutter Senior Consultant Hillel Glazer's introduction to the November 2012 issue of Cutter IT Journal, "Agile CMMI" (Vol. 25, No. 11).

Business intelligence and analytics are becoming increasingly important in creating an agile approach to business process/performance management.

In this series of Advisors ("What's a Knowledge Worker to Do? Part I" and "What's a Knowledge Worker to Do?

Last January, I discussed the respective pros and cons associated with the BYOD and enterprise-supplied device strategies for adopting mobile capabilities in the enterprise.

Mergers are like marriages. Two entities come together to form a union that should, in theory, be greater than the sum of its parts, often with the goal of accelerating growth, cutting costs, increasing market share, or taking advantage of other synergies. In the best case, merged companies complement each other and create new opportunities not realized if they remained separate.

I regularly receive emails like this from procurement departments of large companies or public authorities: "We ask you to offer your proposal for the development of system XYZ that is specified in the 700 pages attached. Please provide your proposal by Friday next week, 0:00 UTC." I have stopped answering these requests.

There has been a lot of discussion surrounding what's better for mobile development: building native apps designed to run specifically on select mobile platforms and OSs (e.g., Apple iOS, Android-based devices, BlackBerry, Windows 8) or using dynamic Web-based technologies (e.g., HTML5, JavaScript, mobile Web frameworks) to bu

A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.

-- J.R.R. Tolkien

While agile methods remain at the forefront in popularity and value, development effort is only a fraction of the overall time, money, and effort spent in maintaining systems.

I sometimes describe architecture as fundamentally about managing complexity and change. Change comes from several different places at the same time. Technology is always evolving and, let's hope, we're used to managing this type of change with architecture.

There are several problems that proper data collection and analysis can partially address. However, collecting and managing data in a proper way is not only difficult from the technological point of view but also from the management point of view. From the technical side, new technologies for managing huge amounts of information have emerged in the last few years. Moreover, many of these technologies (e.g., Cassandra, Hadoop) are open source and easily adoptable inside any organization.

Today's data production occurs at a faster and faster rate. The volume of data available within an enterprise -- and externally to it -- is phenomenal. As a consequence, the role of information architecture is changing, from the passive structuring and managing of data to a smarter, more active role of information effectiveness.

At the risk of gross simplification, when it comes to dealing with too much data, architecture needs to address two concerns:

Today's data production occurs at a faster and faster rate. The volume of data available within an enterprise -- and externally to it -- is phenomenal.

In my work with CEOs and other corporate executives, the question I get asked the most is (paraphrased): What don't I even know to ask? My response is that most CEOs, on the morning after launching an agile initiative, wake up with several concerns, most of them related to what I call the "five fears of an agile leader." These can be identified as the fear of:

While the so-called "Superstorm Sandy" that struck the East Coast of the United States last week did not inspire any Hurricane Katrina-like "heck of a job" mispronouncements in its aftermath, the effective communication of risk took more of a beating than it should have. And as with Katrina, a sizable portion of the US populace is suffering for it.

While the so-called "Superstorm Sandy" that struck the East Coast of the United States last week did not inspire any Hurricane Katrina-like "heck of a job" mispronouncements in its aftermath, the effective communication of risk took more of a beating than it should have.

In my work with CEOs and other corporate executives, the question I get asked the most is (paraphrased): What don't I even know to ask?

I recently had a conversation with several IT leaders about initiating an architecture program in their organization.

By the time you get to the bottom of this Advisor, you will have at least three new ideas on how to get people engaged in your meetings. That's a powerful suggestion. In fact, the only reason that some of you continue to read this is because I just made that promise.