Devops has only been around for a brief few years, and it is already having a significant impact throughout the development community. While there are those who might view the integration of development and operations as a useful fad that serves a limited number of situations, evidence suggests that there are serious advantages to this approach

There has been a lot of noise in the application development area around what are being called "systems of engagement." In this Executive Update series, we will explore this newfound principle and what architects must contemplate in order to foster improved enterprise efficiency and innovation.

If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.

-- Jiddu Krishnamurti

Most large organizations have teams of business analysts. And a growing number have business architects.

When properly executed, an agile approach for delivering software solutions provides value early and often. Stakeholders accustomed to multiyear projects delivered using a traditional waterfall approach are quickly sold on the merits of agile. However, at the end of an agile project is there clear evidence that the value delivered is greater than what would have been delivered with a traditional approach?

In October and November 2012, Cutter Consortium conducted a survey that asked 69 end-user organizations worldwide about their use of mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, in order to provide their employees and partners with the ability to interact with business operations, ranging from basic email to CRM and BI while "on the go." Our goal was to

Think back for a moment to the best project experience you have ever had. It may have been in the workplace, part of some team sport you were involved with, or perhaps it was a major trip you undertook with your family. What are the characteristics that made that a great project experience?

In Part I1 in this two-part Executive Update series, we examined the current state of enterprise risk management (ERM) theory and practice and found, as former Yankee baseball player Yogi Berra once remarked, "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is."

You are in the change agent business.

With the advent of devops, everyone in the software industry seems to have breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief. The problems of deployment would suddenly all be gone and the differences and past grudges between development and operations are a thing of the past:

Software delivery -- on track

Transition from development to operations -- smooth and without problems

Anyone in the business world is familiar with today's relentless pressures to increase productivity, improve customer relationships, create new products, shorten time to market, and increase shareholder return.

Misunderstood, poorly identified, and often brushed aside, the gap between strategic business demands and the ability of deployed IT solutions to meet those demands grows by the day.

CMMI is the de facto standard for process improvement in the software development domain. This standard encourages a systematic approach to process improvement. On the other hand, agile software development fosters high customer collaboration, rapid feedback, and empowerment of the individual developer. Both approaches have already been proven to be compatible and synergistic.

A few months ago, I was asked by a colleague who graduated from the Paris School of Mines to contribute an article to the school's alumni journal on the topic of the impact of "new technologies" on the work of consultants.

With the US presidential election now being over, the results have been dissected by the pundits, political analysts, pollsters, and politicos. One of the most significant elements to emerge is the use of sophisticated analytics and Big Data -- in every aspect of both the Obama and Romney campaigns.

One would be hard pressed to decide which incident represents the worst example of enterprise risk (mis)management practice since 2010 given the surfeit of eminently eligible contenders in which to choose. Among the nominees is BP PLC.

The intersection between agile and mobile development is a natural one, grounded in the similarities between the demands of each. Mobile apps are generally small, frequently updated from an apps store, motivated by clear process requirements, and released almost immediately.

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him.

I confess that while watching Star Trek as a kid, warp drives and dilithium crystals never really excited me much. Nor did I have any desire to be beamed up, down, or otherwise. Phasers and photon torpedoes only induced yawns.

We talk of "enterprise architecture," but there are clearly many different ways of architecting an enterprise.

Many still perceive agile development methods and CMMI best practices as opposite ends of a continuum. These misconceptions originate, in part, from a lack of accurate information. This Executive Update proposes noninvasive measurement as a technique to collect data about the agile software development process.

This Executive Update presents a methodology and a set of tools designed to support the software development process based on the collection and analysis of a large set of information. The design of such a system faces several challenges, such as data reliability and generating useful and timely analysis for both developers and managers. Furthermore, the data and its related analysis are not enough to support the development process in an effective way.

China is an important market for software as a service (SaaS) due to its huge population and current rate of economic growth in an otherwise flat global economy. For the Chinese, as well as for other developing markets, SaaS offers the possibility of using advanced software without investing in expensive infrastructure.

Too many organizations struggle today with the issue of constantly shifting priorities, causing many teams and individuals to work on several projects simultaneously. What was the number-one priority yesterday might not be the same today. So how can organizations maintain flexibility and effective responsiveness to changing business needs while providing their teams with the necessary focus to actually get something done?

Many enterprises have successfully leveraged speech technologies to build interactive voice response (IVR) self-help applications. Such mechanisms enable customers to conduct an ever-widening range of transactions with airlines, banks, retail, and other portals via speech over the phone.