In complex technology projects, dissent involves pushing back against biases, oversimplifications, and the need for certainty that will inform many proposed solu­tions. The role of dissent is to harden and strengthen these proposals and to identify the right course of action among them. Dissent is what provides another view and forces a team to step back and consider another reality; the more often a team presents dissent, the more likely it will explore the complex interdependencies that define modern enterprise technology projects.

In this Advisor, I have chosen the simple word “change” as a starting point for thinking about architectural change, rather than many of the others in rampant use — words such as “transformation,” “permutation,” “enhancement,” and so on. This choice seems appropriate because “change” is an abstract, neutral, and descriptive word without the deeper connotations that might impede the nuancing of this notion into something of a practical, if rudimentary, taxonomy that will help us grapple better with the different kinds of changes that we are compelled to deal with.

Although recent advances in computing user interfaces for decision support tools make the tools much easier to learn, understand, and manipulate, some decision makers may be reluctant to adopt and use a new decision support tool. Potential users with greater IT knowledge and expertise often find it easier to learn new systems than those who are infrequent users and hence lack knowledge and expertise. Thus, developers should strive to build a decision support capability that targets potential users, matching the design to user needs, abilities, and skills.

In statistical project management (SPM), we simplify the project management approach by eliminating many concepts that the dominant project management methodologies consider central. Objects represent a repeatable thing that non-IT people can wrap their minds around. They are supposed to be concrete, like a balance sheet report in an accounting system or an employee demographics data-entry Web form. Since objects are supposed to be repeatable, project managers and the IT organization would find it very helpful to know how long, on average, it takes teams to create and operate related objects. Thus, objects become an important list of deliverables and one that is crucial to estimate accurately. Objects represent, from the user’s perspective, the list of things that are delivered to them — a kind of a bill of materials.

The financial industry is currently focusing on AI solutions using ML and NLP technologies. Software, fintech, and regtech vendors are developing and improving models using data and supervised (training) and unsupervised learning. This proves more effective than previous AI approaches. This Advisor explores the current state of practice in the financial industry’s application of AI.

Agile is spreading and changing at such a rate that we have devoted a second issue of Cutter Business Technology Journal (CBTJ) to the topic.

Software architecture requires balance. During the 20 years I’ve been leading technology organizations to build products, mostly via Agile, I’ve learned some rules that have helped me — and my teams — successfully strike the right balance. These aren’t technically focused rules; they’re more generic, so they apply to monolithic, layered, service-oriented, and microservice architectures equally well. One of these rules is the subject of this Advisor.

According to our latest research, one of biggest issues impeding organizations from carrying out their customer experience (CX) management initiatives is a lack of CX professionals within the organization. So how are organizations meeting or planning to meet their CX implementation needs?

Design thinking is an elegant framing of problem-finding and -solving with a strong focus on delightful outcomes for the customer, while Agile practices focus on delivering the value envisioned in the design phase. This implies the two are equally essential to the team’s creative process. This Advisor describes the four steps in creative problem-solving that comprise the building blocks of innovation.

Many companies are unsatisfied with their innovation efforts and part of this is undoubtedly due to challenges around ideation and idea management. The required contribution of breakthrough innovation is ever-increasing, adding to this pressure. However, it is clear that some companies have developed strong processes and are reaping the rewards. The best practices outlined in this Advisor can help.

Recent research has shown that creating an Agile approach to designing for the con­sequences of technology is the best way to start building successful businesses that use responsible business practices to contribute to a better world. This Advisor explores a new Agile event called “consequence scanning.”

Smart automation is most effective when humans and machines work together to deliver desired outcomes. Effective design for automation is not only about how much can be automated but should also consider how automation works together with humans to deliver value. Several fallacies observed in smart automation initiatives across indus­tries can lead to failed initiatives that never see the light of day or that never deliver the promised outcomes. One fallacy that has led to such failures is the belief that all human activities can be automated.

An ongoing challenge with big data and other secondary analytics initiatives is getting access to data. This Advisor describes a risk-based approach to de-identification, in which the data is transformed and administrative and technical controls are put in place.

The road to automating software development is long and full of twists and turns. No doubt, there will be potholes and detours along the way. However, getting to the end goal now seems possible, if we travel a short distance at a time.

In this Advisor, we describe some of the more popular cognitive development platforms and services that are currently available. Although some cognitive development platforms are available for on-premise deployment, the ongoing trend is for providers to offer their cognitive products in the form of cloud-based environments that give companies the opportunity to license various API-based cognitive services for use in their own enterprise applications or commercial products.

This Advisor provides an overview of the importance of using visual techniques as part of a business architecture practice and highlights the use of visual design.

For most organizations that have deployed customer experience (CX) practices and technologies, it is still too early to tell if their efforts have actually allowed them to deliver a better customer experience. However, for approximately 31% of the organizations that have deployed CX practices and technologies, their initial efforts appear to be paying off. These findings come from the preliminary results of an ongoing CX management survey we are conducting.

The challenge for this issue of Cutter Business Technology Journal was to accurately represent the diversity of research in the decision support system (DSS) arena while also providing a glimpse of the cutting-edge DSSs of tomorrow.

Agile is never done. Without a conscious commitment to sustaining new ways of working, teams can fall back into old habits. Plus, staff turnover or growth brings in individuals who weren’t part of the original shared commitments. Naysayers find evidence that something’s not working — one more reason to subvert change.

Lean companies develop their capabilities and processes continuously as part of their culture. Continuous improvement allows them to align their activities flexibly, according to business strategy. Due to this holistic alignment, these companies achieve relatively high-performance levels compared to their competitors.

Companies often struggle to achieve balanced portfolios that align with company strategy. In this Advisor, we identify one common challenge in portfolio management — deciding the portfolio structure — presented as an anonymized case study.

There are a multitude of innovative applications across industries where RPA solutions are improving the quality of repeated tasks and releasing resources. In this Advisor, I share a sampling of a few interesting case studies and examples of RPA in action.

Businesses are implementing analytics and trying to use data to uncover new insights about their operations, customers, suppliers, employees, and so on. Even though the idea of using analytics is exciting, these types of projects are not for the faint-hearted — at least if you’re trying to implement analytics across the entire enterprise.

For decades, the commercial relationships between companies that provided software development services and their clients have been shaped by either fixed-price/fixed-scope or time-and-materials types of contracts. The drawbacks of both approaches have long been evident, but, nevertheless, both sides have learned to use them to protect their own interests. As we explore in this Advisor, an Agile ecosystem requires the creation of a systemic setup that works with the market, not just selected vendors.

The CTOs of global industrial and manufacturing groups with technology-intensive products and services will tell you that despite the undeniable importance of startups and other external innovation ecosystem partners, internal R&D still needs to be at the core of the innovation effort. External parties are usually unable to make the necessary resource investments for long-term, core R&D. Moreover, maintain­ing leading competencies in core technology areas is usually vital to sustaining competitive advantage. However, there are multiple challenges in the traditional way of aligning R&D strategy and program activities.