Find analysis of data from Cutter's ongoing industry research efforts, brief treatments of topics that don't require the in-depth research of an Executive Report, updates on previously-covered topics, and more, in 2-4 page Executive Updates.
The Five Flavors of Alignment
Service-Oriented Architecture: Development and Ownership
This is the last of a series of four Executive Updates in which I examine the results of a Cutter Consortium survey on service-oriented architecture (SOA). In this final Update, we shall be looking at the favorite products and vendors for SOA development, security, mainframe connectivity, and Enterprise Service Buses (ESBs).
Success Secrets of Pair Programming
Pair programming is a common practice that originated from Extreme Programming (XP), in which two programmers work collaboratively at one computer on the same design, algorithm, or code. The benefits of pair programming on software development are well documented and include improving design quality, reducing defects, lowering staffing risks, enhancing technical skills, and improving team communications [3, 8, 11]. Although pair programming has become increasingly popular, some programmers remain skeptical of pairing.
E-Mail Compliance Requirements for Business
Perhaps the simplest and most pervasive software application for businesses is e-mail. Although possibly one of the greatest time wasters for employees and administrators alike (due to spam, viruses, and other kinds of unwanted messages), e-mail has been a great boon to the efficiency of business communication. It is generally cheap to send, immediate, and self-documenting.
The Configuration Concept: Financial Scale
This Executive Update is the third in a series that examines information and communications technology (ICT) outsourcing and its various configuration options. The series is based on a recent Cutter Consortium survey of 73 organizations in 25 countries across the globe. 1
What to Expect in 2007 -- and Beyond
Delivering Real-Time Benefits: A Case Study -- Part I
The challenge for the typical IT department has been to demonstrate that it is delivering real benefits from the organization's investment in information technology. The organization's executive management, from its point of view, has been increasing the amount of spending on information technology year-on-year with little or no tangible benefits.
Running Your EA Practice Like a Business: Managing Your Practice
In recent years, there have been a number of publications by industry luminaries regarding business transformation, execution, and innovation. In reality, each of these concepts plays a significant role in delivering tangible business values -- and must be connected with a common foundation that can link the associated business processes of the company.
Catastrophe Disentanglement: Part II -- What Can Go Wrong (and What to Do About It)
What do you do when things go wrong? It's a fair question, and a good one to ask in almost any situation. That is because many plans, methods, and processes often break down when things don't go smoothly. In fact, one of the hallmarks of a well-thought-out plan or a good process is how well it survives when severe problems arise.
Insuring IT Security Without Regulation
The November 2006 US elections in which Democrats were chosen to lead both the House of Representatives and the Senate will likely generate increased attention on the need to alter public policy to spur greater security of the nation's IT systems.
PIMs Get Serious
One of the many burdens of aging must include the ever-expanding accumulation of possessions that seem to defy easy classification for orderly storage and retrieval; you know you have too much stuff when you own something but can't find it, despite concerted efforts to organize items with easy access in mind. And so it has become with information. Today's desktop hard drive is a kind of family basement -- a repository of things ranging from the consistently useful to those which over time grow stale, esoteric, and useless.
The Role of IS in Mergers and Acquisitions
IS departments commonly face three types of scenarios as they assist their parent organizations with mergers or the acquisition of a targeted business. These scenarios, which cover the gamut from naive to sophisticated, are listed below:
Real-Life MDA
In December, we attended one of OMG's regular technical meetings, in part to see how its Model Driven Architecture (MDA) initiative is doing. We certainly can't claim impartiality in this respect as we recently published a book entitled Real-Life MDA: Solving Business Problems with Model Driven Architecture [1], in order to help accelerate the adoption of MDA in the IT industry. Nonetheless, we can safely say that, based on what we saw, MDA is rapidly becoming pretty mainstream.
APM: Multiple Projects, Small Budgets, Offshore Developers, and Collaboration Software
A number of excellent articles have been written regarding the implementation of agile project management (APM) with offshore developers (see, for example, [1, 2]); I generally agree with their content, and the information still largely applies today. But there are several APM-driven practices identified in these and other similar articles that are out of reach for many of us, largely due to the scale of the majority of today's IT projects.
Improving Security and Revenue Through Corporate Structure
Follow the money. That's what corporations are supposed to do in a market economy, and value is to be rewarded with investment. However, when value becomes diffused within corporate structures designed for a bygone era, the appropriate investment does not occur, which generates negative consequences. Today, the investment community does not properly value corporate spending on security and resilience. This is true across our corporate structures.
Enhancing Performance with BRMS
The business rules embedded in software are as old as programming itself. The logical statement if-then-else is an ancient and sacred mantra that directs software behavior and is rightfully attracting new attention with the emergence of business rules management systems (BRMS). Managers not familiar with BRMS would do well to acquaint themselves with this class of IT for several reasons, not the least of which is its potential strategic value in enhancing operational performance.
SOX: Entering Adolescence
Public companies subject to the requirements of the US Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) are now entering adolescence in the lifecycle of SOX compliance. The next steps in the lifecycle include rationalization of spending, not only on SOX but on all compliance efforts the company is undertaking. Then, the next step is to find ways to automate the process in order to reduce cost.
Business Process Outsourcing Risks: The Diverging Views
The results of a recent Cutter Consortium survey of 97 business-IT professionals, reported in my previous Executive Update (Vol. 7, No. 20), reveal a complex structure of business process outsourcing (BPO) risks. The strategic risks that BPO client organizations face are tangled up with the project risks and means to reducing those project risks. It is not enough to manage and succeed in a BPO project.
Tuning Up the Business Technology Organization
Take a hard look at your business technology organization. What do you think you do well -- and poorly? This Executive Update presents an agenda for your team to consider. Review it and see what makes sense for your organization. Assess how well you understand trends -- and optimal responses to those trends -- as well as some of the best practices you may or may not be practicing.
Project Management Rigor -- or Rigor Mortis
We've all had a chance to think about project management discipline and how project management offices (PMOs) are doing. For about a decade now, many companies have implemented formal PMOs to help them deal with project inefficiencies usually defined as "late and overbudget." But where are we now in this area? Have PMOs been successful, or have they just added another bureaucratic layer to our projects?
A Pragmatic Approach to Implementing ITIL: Part II -- Process Development and Success
In Part I of this two-part Executive Update series, I provided an overview of the methodology and approach used to develop detailed business processes for managing an IT environment, specifically related to the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and its service management component. A real-life case study was presented, describing one of my clients -- a large organization with more than 50,000 employees that had limited understanding of ITIL or the benefits of service management.