This simple statement -- "the soft stuff is the hard stuff" -- should appear as a screen saver on each device of every IT professional. It was true when either the management and IT guru Tom Davenport or the late reengineering guru Mike Hammer first said it, and it is still true today.

For all independent service providers (ISVs) and IT service providers, developing cloud-based services are becoming an essential business model in order to be at par with competitors and to keep infrastructure and operational cost optimal.

Agile development methodologies represent an ongoing challenge for developers, as they impose processes and requirements that are at odds with traditional waterfall methodologies and do not map well to conventional lifecycle models. While new methodologies naturally create a need for process change, it is important to understand that lifecycle processes have been established to support a range of requirements beyond the needs of development itself.

There's a fundamental problem between the IT profession and its customers: there's an abundance of focus on the cost of the technology (the "T"), yet a dearth of focus on the value of the information (the "I") side of the equation. If the connection between I and T is not clear, then the cost of the technology becomes the only common ground between IT and its customers, and this ground is business quicksand.

SORs are the transactional, back-office systems that IT has been building for the last 40 years. They are the things that we typically call our "core" systems, including custom applications, ERP, and other COTS applications. In contrast to the core SORs are the SOEs: Web-based, user-friendly, social network consumer systems that focus on engaging with employees, partners, and customers and creating an environment of collaboration and community.

Big Data is not only knocking at your business executives' doors, it is being pushed in their faces with dire warnings that if they don't adopt it, their business is doomed for failure. Just consider some of these recent headlines meant to get business leaders to start using Big Data sooner rather than later:

At every turn it seems leaders are being told to embrace Big Data. They are urged to make "data-driven decisions" and to mine their warehouses of all the buried data gold. The problem? This is absolutely the wrong direction to go in. In a past Executive Update, Cutter Fellow Vince Kellen suggested that the problem is that leadership isn't using their data properly.1 But the real problem I see is that we're letting the tail wag the dog.

Businesses are increasingly entrusting their IT enterprise to service providers that specialize in delivering IT services and managing customer environments. The customer's IT owners periodically review the service provider's performance in what are called "governance review meetings." This Executive Update discusses ideas and opportunities for presenting value additions in a manner that will be appreciated by the client-side stakeholders.

Part I of this three-part Executive Update series explored the concept of Big Data and some of the privacy concerns associated with it.1 Here in Part II, we examine some of its legal impacts, with particular attention paid to energy usage, protected health informatio

Operational risks are the most challenging for any organization, but most can be controlled, if not avoided, as long as the organization builds and implements effective enterprise risk management (ERM) strategies. While there are certainly mature methodologies available for risk identification and assessment, today's organizations fail to build and implement them effectively due to limited practice of these methodologies.

Here, we discuss the Web roadblocks ahead for anything as a service (XaaS).

Good architects also need to be good "marketects": they must be able to sell and promote their cause as well as publicize their achievements, outcomes, and results. But how do they do this? What tips and guidelines from the world of marketing can architects adopt to their advantage?

The software development industry is continuously evolving, requiring organizations to maintain greater control over software development processes, methodologies, and practices in order to certify that projects and their management align with a company's strategic direction. The project management office (PMO) paradigm has arisen within organizations as a critical element in maintaining this control.1

In April 2012, while in Boston for the Cutter Summit, I started a dinner conversation with a friend and ex-colleague under the assumption that we would simply have a pleasant chat, giving each other updates on our respective work since our previous meeting.

Part III of this series provides practical advice for launching a business-IT architecture misalignment initiative in practice. Topics covered include business as a change agent in business-IT transformation, building executive support, transformation scenarios, and establishing governance and funding.

As reported in Part I1 of this Executive Update series, Cutter Consortium conducted a survey in October and November 2012 that asked 69 end-user organizations worldwide about their use of mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, in order to provide their employ

"My job is to get people to work hard."

That's how Manager Mike characterized his role. And that's how many managers see their roles. It's not surprising, since many traditional management practices aim to extract maximum individual effort -- to get people to work hard, as Manager Mike put it.

Early in 2012 my 12-year-old son ran down to my office after getting home from school and said, "Hey, Mommy, did you know that Walmart can tell when you're pregnant? And so can Target! Even before anyone else knows! They got a girl in trouble when they sent her dad coupons for baby stuff and congratulated her!"

Early in 2012 my 12-year-old son ran down to my office after getting home from school and said, "Hey, Mommy, did you know that Walmart can tell when you're pregnant? And so can Target! Even before anyone else knows! They got a girl in trouble when they sent her dad coupons for baby stuff and congratulated her!"

This Update explores the enterprise's need to go beyond the firewall to enhance customer satisfaction, increase revenue, and maintain a competitive edge.

Business craftsmanship is concerned with organizational transformation and enlightenment. It can loosely be thought of as a framework -- and certainly utilizes one -- but "framework" is not quite the right term to describe this approach as the term implies stability, and usually a clearly defined set of rules. Scrum is a good example of an organizational framework. It has well-defined components, namely roles, meetings, artifacts, and values.

This year, 2013, may finally be the long-predicted "year of collaboration." In Part I of this two-part Executive Update series,1 I discussed five predictions related to increasing collaboration: collaborative tools for HR, 3D printing changing

Here in Part II, we introduce a business-IT architecture transformation framework. The framework provides a comprehensive approach to addressing business-IT misalignment.

If anything, the pace of change in technology is speeding up. So how will 2013 be different than 2012? Will 2013 actually be the "year of collaboration" -- something people have been predicting every year for the last 20 years?