There is a great deal of advice available on strategies for implementing new technology and for new methodologies for project management, but effective advice is relatively rare for those many sites with stranded investments in legacy IT systems and their respective support organizations.

At a recent project management conference, one of the speakers trotted out the same old project failure statistics we've been hearing since 1995. The speaker concluded that project failure is still rampant, and if would we just try a little harder and control a little more (by installing new systems and new methods), we could finally fix the problem.

Several recent architecture assignments have brought up what I am starting to think of as a new urban myth: guaranteed delivery of products unequivocally guarantees delivery of messages. This is my chance to rant out this annoyance.

Managing work assignments is one of the top challenges in most organizations. The individuals doing the work feel scattered and overwhelmed by the volume of assignments that keep coming their way, while their managers feel caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

A SWOT analysis is a tool used for many purposes in business. The acronym stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. As shown in Figure 1, strengths and weaknesses represent internal factors; opportunities and threats represent external factors. Strengths and opportunities are to be built or maintained; weaknesses and threats are to be eliminated or mitigated.

Two powerful information-processing systems exist in the world: the human mind and the digital computer. The main connection between the two is the display of information, commonly called a user interface (UI).

Editor's note: This Executive Update is excerpted from the Software Engineering Institute's Governing for Enterprise Security (©2005 Carnegie Mellon University). Permission has been granted to Cutter Consortium to reproduce.