Some of the more interesting developments with artificial intelligence (AI) involve its application in media and entertainment. There is a great deal of innovation underway to utilize AI in practically all aspects of media and entertainment — from content creation, procurement, categorization, and distribution to display, intellectual property (IP) protection, marketing, audience measurement, and customer service.

By learning to simply recognize complexity when we see it — and learning that we cannot engage with it through reductionism — could save ourselves a lot of pain and allow our efforts to focus on quality, rather than on trying to do the impossible. By seeking to understand complexity instead of hiding it, we can build better-quality software with less stress.

My colleagues and I have visualized a line-of-business (LOB) application as a collection of finite state machines (FSMs) that model subjects and their interactions with each other. This immediately brings some much-needed structure to our application, while at the same time allowing it to be perfectly extensible. This structure will help us to automate the generation of LOB apps, as the problem now simplifies to specifying FSMs.

Do not underestimate the pace of evolution of cloud technologies. If no one in the organization watches (and understands) the new cloud delivery technologies, you may choose the wrong one, or you may be misled by a vendor that will fail to mention a better option because the vendor does not offer it.

From internal organizational rivalries to human nature to problems with IT people, data democratization faces its own set of challenges and difficulties. By recognizing the symptoms presented in this Advisor, leaders can make the road to data democratization smoother for all involved.

Many of the principles that were developed for the data warehouse are just as relevant today when considering the evolution to a digital business. Underpinning these principles is the implicit need for the active use and management of a coherent layer of metadata. In discussing the broader digital business, it may help to delineate the various systems and applications that occupy the landscape of such a business.

Here are the Business Agility & Software Engineering Excellence articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members and clients in 2018. Look for these lists from each of our four practice areas, and rediscover Cutter's most intriguing articles of the year!

Here are the Business Technology & Digital Transformation Strategies articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members and clients in 2018. Look for these lists from each of our four practice areas, and rediscover Cutter’s most intriguing articles of the year!

Here are the Cutter Business Technology Journal articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members and clients in 2018. Look for these lists from each of our four practice areas, and rediscover Cutter's most intriguing articles of the year!

Here are the Business & Enterprise Architecture articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members and clients in 2018. Look for these lists from each of our four practice areas, and rediscover Cutter's most intriguing articles of the year!

Here are the Data Analytics & Digital Technologies articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members and clients in 2018. Look for these lists from each of our four practice areas, and rediscover Cutter's most intriguing articles of the year!

Many organizations embark upon the “Agile transformational journey” only to find that what looked simple in the planning process is far more complex in reality. The complexity is in the degree and magnitude of the change and the fact that there is no single prescribed solution that works for all situations. Despite what many traditional consultancies advertise, there is no set pattern to success for senior executives to follow. As the DNA of each organization is unique, the reasons for market success and the strategic vision are distinctive, so the means to alter these formulae must be unique as well.

Many organizations are now focusing on a hybrid cloud strategy: moving part of their IT capabilities to the cloud, while maintaining core elements in-house, hosted on-premises. The hybrid model enables organizations to optimally allocate their resources while keeping their current IT infrastructure operating at low risk. A hybrid cloud strategy not only prepares an organization for the future but also protects its investment today. In this Advisor, we describe hybrid cloud and look at its benefits, including security and compliance, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.

There’s a balance to strike in architecture, no matter what methodology you use to create your software. In Agile contexts, that balance is often lost. And it usually leans to less over more. I think the most important acknowledgement or statement that we should all agree to early on in any architectural discussion is that we don’t know. Out of this level of openness and honesty comes the need for prototyping, discovery, and learning. It’s hard to do that if we don’t look each other in the eyes and say, “We don’t know, let’s find out.”

There are few fields as well funded and simultaneously dysfunctional as software, and the opportunity for experimentation is huge. Every software project is unique, in terms of teams, business objectives, and so on. The system that builds, delivers, and manages software is as complex and unpredictable as any other. As we explore in this Advisor, if real complexity can be managed better by exposing the builders to complexity theory, then we can have noteworthy results.

AI is now being used in the legal field in such areas as research and document management, contract analysis, and e-discovery. Additionally, we are seeing significant developments with commercial AI applications in the form of cloud-based solutions specifically designed for handling such legal needs. These commercial applications, for the most part, are not intended to replace legal practitioners, but rather to assist them in performing various tasks associated with the legal process.

The main value of being increasingly agile is to allow the organization to realize its potential visions more quickly, with less investment, and with greater chances of success. To realize those visions, one must have abilities — both non-digital and digital. Digital abilities are information systems–enabling abil­ities that allow for agility. In this Advisor, we define digital abilities through a partial list of key abilities in the form of technologies, attitudes, and approaches we should adopt to become agile.

Despite general agreement among researchers and academics of the need for board-level involvement in IT governance, it appears that in practice this is more the exception than the rule. Given the prevalence of this issue, we have sought to answer the question, “What is the state of the art of the research domain of board-level IT governance?” In this Advisor, we share a few of our findings on the various determinants, theories, and outcomes surrounding board-level IT governance.

An architecture is often thought of as one uniform thing that underlies an enterprise. However, if an enterprise itself is not uniform, is it reasonable to think of its underpinnings as being consistent everywhere? Would we not expect an ideal architecture to mold itself around the curves and ragged edges of the real outlines of the enterprise, guiding it, and being guided by it? This Advisor suggests a three-dimensional framework intended to help in grasping the critical spatial dimensions of enterprises, and to assist in seeing the lines and jagged edges of a specific enterprise, along those dimensions. Architecture needs a ground to stand on – that ground is the enterprise architecture. It behooves architects to grasp what lies beneath their feet.

The cloud computing market has already achieved some major milestones since its inception. Yet it still remains one of the hottest markets in terms of growth, spending, and revenue generation. Indeed, it is still making its way up a steep growth curve, and as more features and functionality are added that allow businesses to embrace new business models and enable innovation, the growth shows no signs of slowing.

Much effort has gone into convincing various organizations within a government to start producing open data. However, the outcomes of such efforts have merely created a disparate landscape of a few leading — some following, some nonengaging — organizations. Hence, we cannot ignore the importance of the cultural and change management dimension when setting up an open data program.

This Advisor reflects on the technology evolution of data warehouses and data lakes as well as the evolution of computer-assisted decision making, including data exploration, analytics, and decision support. Arguably, the data warehouse still serves an important purpose and will continue to have a significant place in the IT infrastructure. It is important, how­ever, to consider new technologies to support the need for real-time data, dynamic data warehouses, self-service business analytics, and algorithmic decision making.

For a scrum team to be successful, it is important to learn of and solve problems as they occur. As we work together, we express how we’re doing, what’s in our way, and our concerns so they can be addressed. It’s an ongoing process of improvement from sprint to sprint. There are as many team dynamics as there are teams, so sometimes getting started is awkward if people feel uncomfortable opening up. As we explore in this Advisor, sustained success demands a brave willingness to be “all in.”

Gone are the days that an organization could plan for sustainable competitive advantage and build a five-year (or even three-year) strategic plan. The business environment has become ever-more chaotic, dynamic, and disruptive. Enter agility, as the new capability to develop transient competitive advantage with shorter planning and execution cycles. Welcome to the age of “agilification.” In this Advisor, the authors touch on the important interplay among leadership, culture, business architecture, and digital architecture.

“Value” is not a substance ladled into a product by some parts of the production process but not by other parts. Instead, value arises from an act of valuation on the part of the user of a product. So, in determining whether some activity “adds value,” the right question to ask is not, “Does the user of this product value the activity?” The user of the product does not value any production activities whatsoever, in and of themselves. What the user values are the features of the final product, regardless of how they were brought about.