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.
Shoes for the Cobbler's Children: E-Learning and IT
E-learning seems to be the newest solution for all that ails business training programs, and it's inevitable that IT be challenged to adopt an approach to learning that leverages technology. Creating a strategy for e-learning is confusing, though, because it can take so many different forms. Walk through a vendor exhibit area at any training conference and it seems every vendor is selling an e-learning product.
e-Business Brings Alignment
We've talked a lot about how e-business is different. New technologies, 24/7 availability, worldwide access, and faster time to market are all ways that the e-business world is different. Most of these changes are concrete and therefore obvious. But e-business is different in intangible ways, too.
The New Mobile Workforce
Recently, members of the Cutter Research Business Technology Trends Group (a focus group of IT managers) were asked to complete a study on the future of their mobile workforces. For this study, mobile professionals were defined as workers who are trying to access corporate information away from a physical corporate location.
Component Implementation
Increasingly, companies are turning to component-based development to create new applications. A few years ago, most companies were still doing object and component development in special groups and applying the techniques to carefully selected tasks. However, since the late 1990s, with the rise of the Internet and Java, component-based techniques have pretty much swept away the competition.
Agile Modeling and the Rational Unified Process
Agile modeling (AM), formerly known as extreme modeling (XM), describes a collection of values, principles, and practices for effective modeling of software systems. The approaches promoted by AM can be used to improve most software development projects, particularly those focused on the creation of business software, regardless of the software process that the project team has adopted.
Case Study: Using XML Schemas to Implement EAI Solutions
I am currently the application architect on a project whose purpose is to accept service orders from Web clients and implement those orders by triggering workflows in back-end legacy systems. The exact details of the client or the application are unimportant. What's important is that this is a typical enterprise application integration (EAI) scenario -- using a Web client to invoke end-to-end transactions via a workflow middle layer that ultimately uses back-end resources to perform its work.
The High Cost of Poor Data Quality
This past February, a war of words erupted between the shoe manufacturer Nike, Inc. and i2 Technologies, the software developer that provided Nike with a new demand-and-supply inventory system.
Facets of Decentralized IT
Whether to centralize or to decentralize is one of the perennial questions in IT. It never goes away; it just advances and recedes in an irregular cycle. Since this question is currently looming large in industry, this Executive Update analyzes data from Cutter Consortium's ongoing Business-IT Strategies Survey to explore the facets of decentralized IT.
XML Componentization for E-Business Reuse
An interesting report crossed my desk as I began to write this Executive Update. The report mentioned a large number of CIOs at a lecture on legacy to Web evolution who wanted less radical approaches to connecting e-business initiatives to their legacy systems. Why? The consensus was that the solutions on offer were too expensive and risky.
Project Governance: The Forgotten Component of Project Success
Attending yet another project management course seems to be a common reward for being part of a failed project. However, having served as a member of project teams, a project manager, a project director, and a member of several steering committees -- and having attended a number of project management courses -- I have begun to realize that most failures have little to do with the project manager's abilities.
Project Goals, Business Performance, and Risk
Advice on IT Outsourcing (Part 3: Offshore, ASPs, and the Future)
This Executive Update contains the third, and last, part of our series containing advice from a panel of Cutter Consortium Senior Consultants -- Mike Epner, Ian Hayes, David Herron, and Wendell Jones -- on the outsourcing process.
Managing Offshore Outsourcing: Part 2
In Part 1 of this Executive Update (Vol. 2, No. 5), we looked at internal strategy and process maturity and their respective impacts on offshore outsourcing. In this Update, we'll continue to look at the management of offshore service providers.
Evaluating the Status of Telecommuting
Telecommuting is both a familiar concept and a popular buzzword in today's high-tech, Internet-enabled society. As we suggested in a Cutter Consortium Business Technology Trends E-Mail Advisor last year (" Telecommuting Still Has a Long Way to Go," 9 November 2000):
The Middleware Mess
The Cutter Technology Council's Assertion #13 reads: "E-business and e-commerce will continue to fuel explosive growth in, and unending confusion about, the middleware portion of IT architectures." The purpose of this Executive Update is to consider whether there is evidence of this trend in industry today.
Instant Messaging: Humanizing the Web
Without a great deal of fanfare, instant messaging (IM) has become a major interest area for a good many companies. Like so many technologies, it slipped under the corporate radar as part of the Internet, disguised as a way to let teenagers and retired people talk to each other. Somewhere along the line, it became obvious that millions of people were using IM to send billions of messages each day.
Remote Access Strategies
Remote access and virtual private network (VPN) growth continue to accelerate, due to an increasingly mobile work force and the globalization of companies. The rate of growth in these technologies is causing some unique challenges for IT management.
Business-IT Strategies in Practice
I have been involved with statistical analysis of IT trends since 1989. Gathering and analyzing statistics provides a reality check of actual industry practices against anecdotal evidence, vendor hype, and media hyperbole. The most enjoyable results for me are when the statistics differ so significantly from popular perception that they demand we reconsider our thinking.
Improving End-User Testing Using Behavioral Assessment
The quiet revolution of the Internet and its related technologies continues unabated despite the negative swings in the stock market. Although the hype and hope associated with dot-coms and the new economy have started to fade, make no mistake: the pervasive and profound force of the Internet is very much a part of the real economy, and we ignore the consequences at our peril.
Component Reuse: Crossing the Chasm
Recently, a well-known methodologist asked me what books or courses I would recommend to those just getting started in component-based development. This shocked me a bit. I've been writing about component development for so long that I tend to think everyone must already know about components. I must realize, of course, that most of my readers are managers or developers working on cutting-edge projects.
Taking Software Methodologies to the Next Level
The process of creating software has come a long way since the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) was established at Carnegie Mellon University in 1984. SEI was sponsored by the US Department of Defense and given the charter of advancing the practice of software engineering from an ad hoc, labor-intensive activity to a well-managed discipline that is supported by technology.
Managing Change: A Debate
The 22 February e-Project Management E-Mail Advisorsparked a lively debate between the author, Jim Highsmith, and Karl Wiegers, well-known author and frequent contributor to the Cutter IT Journal. This Executive Update contains the original advisor, the debate between Highsmith and Wiegers, and an interesting comment from Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Chris Pickering.
Advice on IT Outsourcing (Part 2: Shaping Your Outsourcing Agreement)
This Executive Update contains the second part of our series containing advice from a panel of Cutter Consortium Senior Consultants -- Mike Epner, Ian Hayes, David Herron, and Wendell Jones -- on the outsourcing process.
B2B Dynamics in the Auto Industry
Editor's note: Assertion #32 from the Cutter Technology Council states, "There will be an increasing move to highly dynamic business-to-business (B2B) relationships." This assertion will be debated in an upcoming Council Opinion.
BPR for E-Business
I recently got into a long discussion with some folks from IBM and Sun Microsystems about e-business development and what is actually happening at large corporations.