Access the Experts

Cutter Consortium's Access to the Experts inquiry program, available to Cutter Consortium members, provides you with astute analysis and advice directly from Cutter's renowned experts. You'll find that your inquiry calls with Cutter experts are very different from those you may be used to with analysts at other IT research/advisory firms. The difference comes from Cutter's independent community of recognized experts -- each with years of experience addressing the same kinds of problems you're encountering. Cutter's experts:

• have written some of the seminal books in business-technology;

• they've held high-level positions in global organizations;

• they work with enterprises around the globe helping solve problems like you face.

These outspoken authorities will give you the advice you really need, not just what you want to hear (or what some vendor wants you to hear).

Your Client Research Manager

Every client organization with Access to the Experts is assigned a Client Research Manager who fields your inquiries and matches the right expert to your inquiry. He or she ensures your questions are answered promptly and handles the logistics for teleconferences. We dedicate the time to coordinating the communications, so you can concentrate on getting the answers you need.

Use the Time Any Way You Want

Access to the Expert time can be used in a variety of ways. Set aside time for your CIO to have a conversation with the same Cutter IT strategist every month, building a rapport with this expert so he/she will develop a sound understanding of your organization's framework and how the issues you face fit within this framework. Or make inquiries on a variety of different topics. Or choose a Senior Consultant with whom you'd like to brainstorm with when ad hoc issues arise. However you choose to use your Access to the Expert, you can be sure the Senior Consultant who answers your questions will have the very best expertise.

While some inquiries may be answered informally by our experts, others will require research and further conversation in order to provide the best advice. But in each and every case you'll get one of the best minds in the industry working on your problem right away.

Case Studies

Defining Best Practices and Testing Procedures for a Large Data Migration

Client: Diversified global financial services company

Cutter Senior Consultant Ken Collier explained the best practices around testing procedures for data warehouse development, consolidation and migration for evaluating quality, completeness and accuracy. Dr. Collier helped the company develop its own robust approach to deal with all aspects of the data migration including organization of the infrastructure and teams, how to handle the risk and impact on existing systems, and how to handle more than 12 terabytes of data in a manageable fashion.

Business Requirements Engineering Assessment

Client: Fortune 500 energy company

Cutter Fellow Stephen Andriole helped this organization analyze and revamp its Business Requirements Engineering process. The company struggled with determining the right requirements and how to communicate them properly. Dr. Andriole helped develop a roadmap to a more robust and highly developed requirements process.

Protecting Personal Identifiable Information

Client: Fortune 500 financial institution

Senior Consultant Rebecca Herold helped this enterprise assess its capability to protect personal identifiable information, as well as its current incident monitoring system to evaluate how breaches were monitored, reported, and resolved. Ms. Herold provided valuable insight and advice on how to make the system more accurate and responsive in order to cut down on data breaches and information vulnerabilities.

Use Case Best Practices

Senior Consultant Oliver Sims discussed with a team of project managers from a European quasi-governmental agency the strategy of describing the organization's existing systems in terms of Use Cases in preparation for their eventual switch to Horizon Next Generation. The in-depth inquiry covered what Use Cases are, the parameters of how to employ them with the existing system, the metrics associated with Use Cases, and what obstacles the organization might face from a project management perspective. In addition, Mr. Sims provided stories on best practices associated with Use Cases, based on his prior experiences.

CIO Mentoring

Cutter Fellow Rob Austin and the CIO of a Fortune 500 and Financial Times Global 500 firm meet monthly by phone to discuss the latest challenges IT confronts due to the organization's rapidly changing and mission-critical industry.

How to Transition to a New Technology

Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Brad Kain helped a military organization determine the best way to choose a technology alternative for the current user interface layer of its Java-based command and control IT application. Mr. Kain and the client discussed which approach was best for the client's large and frequently changing application, as well as the best ways for their user interface to communicate with their Geographic Information Systems (GIS) component.

From advice on your governance strategy from Cutter's Enterprise Risk Management & Governance expert Bob Charette, to counsel on integrating agile approaches into your existing project management methodology from agile project management expert Jim Highsmith; learning about how best to rethink XP in your organization from XP founder Kent Beck; input on overcoming obstacles to your service-oriented architecture implementation from enterprise architecture expert Mike Rosen; feedback on your security plan from security guru Mark Seiden; to advice on how to evaluate business-IT alignment in your particular enterprise from IT strategy expert Bob Benson, Cutter's team of experts is uniquely positioned to provide you with answers.