Welcome to The Cutter Edge. In each free biweekly edition you'll benefit from insight and business technology advice designed to help you further your organization's mission.

Featured Article

Drowning in Data? Strategic Analytics Throws a Lifeline

by Curt Hall, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium

Data warehousing, BI, and analytics, in general, are undergoing profound changes. These are resulting from a global, just-in-time, "always-on" business environment that is redefining organizational requirements pertaining to how data is collected, processed, and used. So much data is generated so quickly that it has sparked the advent of new -- or, if you're in an argumentative mood, at least revised -- data management and data analysis technologies and practices, which are beginning to garner increasing attention by organizations seeking to take advantage of their huge data assets.

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Embracing Metrics: Accurate Cost and Schedule Estimation

by Michael Mah, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium

Many IT managers are seeking to reliably forecast and estimate projects. In these instances, a typical scenario involves a client organization (i.e., the marketing department or an internal business unit) that specifies a set of business requirements, user requests, or the like. Oftentimes, the level of specificity of the requirements varies tremendously, anywhere from a set of e-mails or memoranda to a complete product or requirements specification. In either case, and everywhere in between, the development manager must provide "the estimate" for budget and staff purposes. In perhaps 95% of the cases, the deadline is mandated by decree.

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Stat of the Week

Q: To what extent is your organization actively pursuing iPhone/smartphone applications?

Cutter Senior Consultant Mike Sisco sees the potential smartphone apps have for business. Our recent survey* showed that 70% of respondents' organizations are doing something in the smartphone space to benefit their companies. Says Sisco, "Phones and PDAs are technologies that have a strong personal choice dynamic among users. The IT department's need for standards will be tasked to develop apps that work across multiple product lines."

* Excerpted from "Cautious Optimism in an Uncertain Business Climate ()," Cutter Benchmark Review, Vol. 10, No. 1

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Editor's Pick

The Point Toyota Seemed to Miss ()

"Lean production is not synonymous with enterprise risk management is the point Toyota executives seemed to miss," wrote Practice Director Robert N. Charette in his weekly Enterprise Risk Management & Governance E-Mail Advisor. Torpedos, Toyotas, and Turnarounds () looks at some of the management of risk approaches that Toyota abandoned when it expanded rapidly in the 2000s. To give the piece some historical perspective, Bob also recounts the problems that the US Navy had with its Mark XIV torpedo during the early stage of WWII.

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New in Cutter IT Journal

Business Process Management: The Missing Link Between Business and IT?

by Claude Baudoin

The focus of business process management (BPM) has shifted from a documentation activity -- typically driven by IT -- to a business responsibility in which processes are monitored and managed against key process indicators, and capabilities are created to simulate processes directly from models. BPM is finally penetrating the business and IT cultures and is poised to help organizations achieve the elusive goal of the model-driven, real-time enterprise. Guest Editor Claude Baudoin's opening statement will give you some insight into BPM's evolution and why it's seemingly re-energized.

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