Using a case study approach, we have researched why managers often disengage from project risk management. We singled out significant adverse events for a range of IT rollout projects, projects that involved the physical provision of client-server infrastructure plus (usually) a consistent set of software applications. We asked about key risks that the project managers associated with these events, whether and why those risks were known, and what actions, if any, they took in response.

One of the most important disruptive technologies that businesses can employ today is video. Video can benefit several business activities, including training, corporate communications, collaboration and knowledge sharing, and CRM.

One reason for slow cloud adoption within the enterprise has been a justifiable fear of vendor lock-in and proprietary systems partially caused by a woeful lack of cloud computing standards. Cloud migration or onboarding has long been hampered by the lack of virtual image standardization.

Big Data and analytics are of growing importance to the enterprise. These areas have developed so swiftly and contain such levels of potential complexity that they are creating a variety of staffing issues.

I recently worked with two client management groups on the basics of trust and partnership between IT and business. This is a continuing and ongoing issue that affects our profession and is somewhat amazing to me, since we have been dealing with this problem for so many decades.

In my Advisor "Reassessing Your Software Process," I drew a parallel between transaction cost and velocity. According to classical economic theory (see R.H.

There has been a lot of noise in the application development area around what are being called "systems of engagement" (SOE).

[From the Editor: This week's Cutter IT Advisor is from Cutter Senior Consultant Claude Baudoin's introduction to the September 2012 issue of Cutter IT Journal, "IP, Innovation, and Collaboration: BFFs or Frenemies? " (Vol. 25, No. 9).

Each time I fly, I notice flight attendants taking passengers' food and drink orders on a pad of paper. I've thought for some time now that would be a perfect scenario for using a tablet device. So you can imagine just how pleased I was to learn recently that American Airlines (AA) is going to be doing just that.

With the rise of Big Data analytics and significant improvements in high-performance computing, it is likely that more knowledge-worker jobs will get displaced. Industry and academia are finding new ways of mining data and performing complex tasks previously done only by humans. IBM's Watson’s adroitness at Jeopardy may precede, by perhaps only a few years, general-purpose computing’s ability in diagnosing illnesses and processing complex business problems. Advanced image-processing capabilities can be applied to adding metadata to video files.

With the rise of Big Data analytics and significant improvements in high-performance computing, it is likely that more knowledge-worker jobs will get displaced. Industry and academia are finding new ways of mining data and performing complex tasks previously done only by humans.

Your smartphone dings to signal the arrival of an email. Upon seeing its title, "Build #452 failed," your stress level doubles. You approach Rae, a talented developer, and say, in a slightly ticked-off tone, "I notice the build broke."

The idea of having a standard for describing architectures was first debated in the 1990s.

Just a couple of years ago, we were witnessing -- and some of us were deploring -- the "irrational exuberance" as well as the uncontrolled fears of many customers and decision makers about cloud computing.

A paradox increasingly confronts a number of researchers and analysts: to derive value from data, you need a lot of it. We now have the tools to analyze these large amounts, but few institutions, at least in the private sector, are willing to make it available to others.

If you are a CIO, project manager, or chief architect involved in or contemplating a very large system replacement, you owe it to yourself to read Jerome (Jack) Israel's article in IEEE Computer entitled, " Why Can't the FBI Build a Case Management System?" It is a

For those not familiar with the structure of subways, the third rail is the one that carries the power for the trains. Under no circumstances do you ever want to touch it.

There is often much confusion between processes, value streams, and capabilities. While each is intended to describe business operations in some way, each has a different purpose, focus, and use.

Big Data describes the evolutionary results of digitization, storage growth, and processing capability. It encompasses the growth of data in volume, variety, and velocity resulting from the increasing amounts of digitized material and data generated on the Internet.

As more traditional enterprises start to move their Hadoop projects into production, they are confronting the big question: How do we ensure data security and compliance in Big Data environments like Hadoop?

While recently raking together a large pile of freshly fallen leaves from the London Plane trees in my yard, it occurred to me that they had a strong connection to the ongoing pitcher risk-reward controversy involving the Washington Nationals baseball team.

I have heard so many CIOs say they just want to be able to walk into the offices of their internal customers -- business-unit VPs and other executives -- and show them exactly the real, fully loaded costs of the systems they are using and the financial consequences of some of the demands they push on IT without full knowledge of costs.

My "baptism" in programming was based on a discussion scratched on the back of my user's used-up cigarette case.

There have been significant advances in process modeling tools over the past decade. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that companies are getting good value from the time and effort they have invested in process modeling.

In my last Advisor (“ Big Data Analytics in a Socially Infused Healthcare Enterprise”), I shared an account of leveraging Big Data analytics in a large healthcare IT organization.