The past year was tumultuous in so many different respects, IT being just one of them. One of the conclusions we can draw about this year is that change happens fast, often faster than we can react. I'd like to take this opportunity to reflect on the technology trends I've observed in the past 12 months. One of these technologies -- enterprise application integration (EAI) -- is of great interest to me.

One of the unresolved issues associated with software methodologies is how to select a software product release date. Current thinking, embodied by the so-called "agile" software methods, is that software should be released frequently to the customer. Older, more staid methods are often silent on this topic.

E-project management (EPM) has been defined as the management of projects that are large and mission-critical but involve the use of novel tools and processes required to address turbulent business and technology environments (see Cutter Consortium's e-Project Management -- now known as Agile Project Management -- Executive Report, Vol. 1, No. 1). In this Update, we'll be examining EPM primarily as it applies to managing large-scale, advanced software projects.

Editor's note: Attacks on information infrastructures are increasing, and consumers and companies are especially watchful for the best protective measures to strengthen cyber-security. Discussions on cyber-threats often give rise to the following questions: What are the symptoms of criminal activity? What routines are advised for early detection of attacks?

Cutter Consortium recently conducted a survey regarding litigation experiences in IT. In this Executive Update, I will present these survey results as they confirm anecdotal accounts and general impressions. Of the respondents, 78% had been involved in a dispute that had ended in litigation (see Figure 1).

"The more efficient you are, the harder it is to change." In this Executive Update, Tom DeMarco's adage will be our guidepost as we examine issues concerning IT and business, drawn from Cutter Consortium's surveys.

"Slack represents operational capability sacrificed in the interests of long-term (organizational) health." So writes Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant and Cutter Business Technology Council Fellow Tom DeMarco in his most recent book, Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busy Work, and the Myth of Total Efficiency (Broadway Books, 2001).

Risk management is getting to be too complex to use on anything less than a major, multimillion-dollar project. The use of risk management on IT programs is overly complicated. This Executive Update shows one way of cutting through the clutter of risk management tools, status reports, and metrics by adopting a simple, stratified approach.

Business-IT Strategies Executive Update Vol. 4, No. 20 was the first of a three-part series analyzing the state of e-business. That Update reviewed where e-business stands today. This Update looks at the benefits enjoyed by current e-business users and the obstacles to the continued growth of e-business. The third Update will address how to use this information in your business-IT strategy planning.

We recently spoke with Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Brad Kain, who just completed a project in which he integrated a new system with a legacy system. We discussed the challenges the client faced and the business problems it needed to solve.

Cutter Consortium (CC): Who was the client for this project, and what was the business problem it faced?

In September and October, I reported on the findings of a Cutter Consortium e-business survey. I addressed the commitment companies have to e-business (Executive Update, Vol. 4, No. 18); the types of applications being developed (Executive Update, Vol. 4, No.

Web data analysis has received considerable attention in the general computing and IT trade press, and it is frequently cited by business intelligence (BI) tool vendors as an application area for the use of their products.

One form of the distinction between information and knowledge is that knowledge is information about how to connect information. Not uncommonly, the discovery of a pattern connecting previously unrelated bits of information occurs through serendipity. The churning of stuff through one's mental inbox generates random juxtapositions that can suddenly suggest new meanings to anyone ready to notice them.

"So little information controls so much behavior," or so wrote theoretical biologist C. H. Waddington. In this Executive Update, we begin a multipart look at the issues involved in project management husbandry, drawing on data from Cutter Consortium's ongoing surveys.

"Out of intense complexities immense simplicities emerge," or so wrote Winston Churchill. In this Executive Update, we continue our look at the issues involving project management husbandry, drawing on data from Cutter Consortium's surveys.

The bloom is gone from the e-business rose. No longer is e-business the darling of the business press. No longer is e-business new, novel, and exciting. Today, e-business is commonplace. E-business is expected. E-business is simply the way certain things are done.

For e-business, this is a good thing. It means that e-business is maturing. It means that e-business doesn't have to live up to a bunch of unrealistic hype. It means that e-business has won its spurs. Most important, it means that e-business is here to stay.

The recent Executive Update on e-business architectures ( Vol. 4, No. 18) was the first in a series of updates that will report on the findings of an ongoing Cutter Consortium e-business survey. This survey aims to see whether companies are undertaking e-business projects and, if so, how they are architecting these projects.

I began reviewing Cutter Consortium's recent e-business survey this past September. In Executive Update Vol. 4, No. 18, I reported that 74% of respondents (some 140 companies once I eliminated software companies and consultants from our sample) were firmly committed to e-business as a key part of their corporate strategies.

Cutter Consortium continues to survey companies about their customer relationship management (CRM) practices. In this month's Executive Update, we discuss findings from our survey of 159 participants designed to measure and assess corporate views on a number of CRM issues, including:

In this Executive Update, we complete our look at the issues involved in the agile versus heavy methodology debate, drawing on data from Cutter Consortium's ongoing surveys.

"Why should we spend time on a project review?" the support manager asked. "Last time we did a 'lessons learned' meeting in an hour. And even that was a waste of time. We just make a list of what we learned and never look at it again."

It's been about three decades since the first promises about voice recognition were made by researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA -- the same Defense Department agency that created the underlying technology for the Internet).

Money is the key to e-commerce. Selling products over the Web -- exchanging products for money -- defines e-commerce. On the Web, money comes in various forms, some as conventional as credit cards and some as unconventional as eBay's Billpoint online payment service. "Web money," if you will, has been the source of much hand-wringing and the focus of much creative thinking.

Business-IT alignment has received a lot of ink through the years. The latest research from Cutter Consortium shows that most companies regard their business-IT alignment as good. But this research also shows that business-IT alignment is a problem for these same companies. This Executive Update presents these findings and highlights some ways that companies can alter traditional IT practices to improve business-IT alignment.

Phil Knight -- of Nike's oft quoted public utterance, "This is what I get for $400 million?" -- has become the poster child for highlighting the difficulty of implementing supply chain technologies.