We've recently noticed considerable discussion about the role of IT and the CIO in these turbulent, IT-intensive times. Generally, the discussion ranges from whether the CIO/IT will exist as a distinct, enterprise-level construct in the future, to "It's a technology management role" and on to quite lofty strategic business transformation/leadership roles for the CIO and senior IT folks.

There are a great many ways to consider software. For example, software can be thought of as pastime, a profession, or a science. Clearly, it can also be thought of as a branch of technological marketing. And one of the great software marketing coups of our time was the Agile Manifesto. Short and to the point, it asked its adherents to adopt a "new" approach, which combined a number of software organizational and management ideas, and which became the rallying cry of a generation of "Agile" developers and managers.

Partitioning is a key technique in enterprise architecture (EA). Architects can use partitioning to make it easier to manage development, evolution, and governance of architectures and to simplify the overall architecture landscape. In a recent Executive Update (see "Best Practices in Partitioning Enterprise Architectures"), we take a close look at today's best practices in partitioning enterprise architectures.

Innovation has become accepted as central to competiveness in today's world, both in new product development and in enhancement of internal processes. Companies struggle with innovation, and there have been numerous attempts to regularize and program it. But the development of truly breakthrough ideas is difficult, and recognizing them when they do arrive can be harder still.

Mobility ranks high on the list of must-have technologies organizations are seeking to implement in the coming year. A recent Cutter Consortium survey (conducted in July–October 2014) that asked 49 organizations about their mobile technology practices and adoption plans helps shine some light on corporate mobility spending trends for 2015.

The combination of data (including open data) with apps often represents cooperation between an app developer and a database or data set designer. They may be working jointly on a single project, but very frequently each is working on a component (data set or app) that will be paired with other components (app or data set) that have not yet been thought of.

There's an important question to ask at this point: who is doing this work? The answer to this question gets into the new world of app development.

As a kid, I remember picking up one of my mom's House Beautiful magazines with a picture of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Fallingwaters" house on the cover. Right then I decided I wanted to be a "real" architect. I kept that goal in the back of my mind until I went off to college, and though I still wanted to be an architect, there were a couple of things that held me back. For one, the school that I was attending -- while having a strong engineering school -- didn't have an architecture department. That, and the fact that I couldn't draw.

Organizations have missions. Specific roles have missions, too. The fact that we go to some trouble to define missions is an indication that there is some utility in doing so for entities designed to accomplish something of value. We are currently putting architects in place in our enterprises. But there are so many varied definitions of "architect" within enterprises, let alone across companies. So can defining an architect's mission help?

In last week's Advisor (see "Using (and Abusing) the Agile Testing Quadrants, Part I"), we introduced my and Janet Gregory's version of the Agile testing quadrants (2008) based on Brian Marick's Agile testing matrix. In this Advisor, we will discuss how to use the quadrants to help your team build the right product in a sustainable way.

The use of APIs has continued to increase in the past year with the continuing development of the API economy. APIs are not new, of course, but they have risen to particular prominence recently through their association with mobility and the cloud. APIs offer access to sophisticated services that can be explored through very simple applications. This is ideally suited to mobile devices, which are now generating a large market for mashups that bring together and integrate APIs from diverse services.

Not long ago, it was possible to sequester the enterprise behind its firewall and DMZ, creating a clear and defensible boundary. But mobility, cloud technologies, and social networking are eroding this separation. 

Models are useful for software development as well as for our daily lives. As new models are dreamed up, they're out in the world for other people to use, adapt, and evolve, or possibly try to destroy.

Models are useful for software development as well as for our daily lives. As new models are dreamed up, they're out in the world for other people to use, adapt, and evolve, or possibly try to destroy.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has generated considerable hype over the past few years. Probably nowhere has this hype been greater than when it comes to wearable devices like smart watches (Apple Watch), smart glasses (Google Glass), activity/fitness trackers (Misfit), and smart badges (for location tracking, security, etc.). This includes the use of wearables as general consumer electronic devices, as well as for their possible application in business scenarios designed to help workers perform their jobs.

A good relationship between parties is critical to the success of any important contract. Although many may talk about the relationships between "parties," it's common knowledge (and common sense) that relationships are between people, not entities.

Reasons vary as to why the use of speech as a means for employees to interface with enterprise applications has received only limited use. Arguments run from limitations associated with the accuracy of early speech recognition systems to questions pertaining to their expected ROI in business scenarios. But I think the biggest reason has been the lack of a real need to actually use speech systems in the enterprise. Simply put, it has just been easier for employees to access most enterprise systems using a keyboard while they were at work; and this was the case for years.

The latest findings in neuroscience have broad implications for all aspects of business, from product design to leadership. Hot topics include human task performance, learning, motivation, attention, and memory. Deep insights from this research can lead to the creation of better software. For the IT professional, this will change the way software is designed and developed. It will also change how software teams are assembled and managed.

One of the many concepts only lightly touched on in Dean Leffingwell's Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) material is the concept of "Ba." As with many other things in SAFe, it is worthwhile here to spend some time digging for the original ideas and publications -- and to find a gem from 1998 that was unknown at least to me.

There is a growing buzz in the blogosphere that agile architecture means combining Agile software methodologies with software architecture best practices. So, is that what agile architecture is all about?

Perhaps, but that's not the whole story. We also need to reinvent the practice of EA to achieve business agility in the enterprise. Software plays an important role, but agile architecture isn't really about software. It's about the people in the organization.

In recent years, Agile software development has gained a lot of interest in the fields of software engineering, information systems development, and project management. Agile software development methods have gained a level of maturity, with many organizations adopting them for at least some of their software development needs in a variety of small, medium-sized, and large software projects.

Wave is not your traditional enterprise BI toolset. Nor is it simply another add-on data visualization product. Rather, Wave employs a hybrid BI and search design intended to provide nontechnical end users with interactive self-service BI exploration and analysis capabilities.

The world of software development is now, and has been since its beginning, in a state of flux. When you think about it, how could it be otherwise? Software is the enabling technology that glues together all the other rapidly changing elements of 21st-century technology. Software not only powers your smartphone or big data cloud, it also helps chip designers to create hardware at submicroscopic levels. And software now powers tools that can recognize one face in a crowd of thousands.

As a senior manager, you set priorities and determine whether these recommendations are implemented. Ensure all parties engage and coordinate to get data quality the attention it needs at the right time and place in the project. In this Advisor, we highlight some best practices for collaboration.

To begin, you must understand how your data knowledge network affects project management:

A curious thing happens when an EA team adopts a particular framework -- it takes on the preconceptions of that framework. This broadly means that companies adopting TOGAF assume a process-driven approach to EA, while those using the Zachman Framework embrace a more content-driven style.

[From the Editor: This week's Cutter IT Advisor is from Cutter Senior Consultant Dave Rooney's introduction to the October 2014 issue of Cutter IT Journal, "Agile in the Real World" (Vol. 27, No. 10). Learn more about Cutter IT Journal.]