Topics and Debate

Keynotes

Each 90-minute keynote presentation is designed to make you question the status quo. And the 90-minute panel sessions that follow are a forum for debate and opinion around the ideas presented in the preceding keynote.

Learning from Expert Innovators Around the World

Keynote: Rob Austin, Director, Cutter Innovation Practice Professor, Harvard Business School

Panelists: Rob Austin, Lee Devin, Mehmood Khan, Fernando Durán

In an ever "flattening" world, innovation is the way of creating business value in which companies in developed economies (like those of the US, Europe, Japan, Australia, etc.) might be able to maintain an edge against low cost competitors (from China, India, etc.). Not surprisingly, then, the business press is lately filled with exhortations to innovate. Innovation has become the new business obsession.

In this keynote, Cutter Fellow and Harvard Business School Professor Rob Austin will describe the emerging results from a global, multi-year study aimed at uncovering the management principles, processes, and practices that expert innovators seem to share. Through carefully methodical research, Dr. Austin and his research team have identified numerous dimensions along which world-class innovators - individual, teams, and organizations - are alike, as well as dimensions along which they are different from those who are less successful at innovation. These findings suggest deep insights as well as practical advice for managers and IT professionals.

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Web 2.0: A Social Revolution

Keynote: Stowe Boyd, Senior Consultant, Cutter Business Intelligence Practice

Panelists: Stowe Boyd, Sylvia Marino, JP Rangaswami, Andy McAfee, Ed Yourdon

The Web 2.0 phenomenon has cascaded through the tech world, changing everything it touches: the explosion of social and tightly-focused applications, the stratospheric growth of users for services like MySpace and YouTube, and the huge wave of investment finding its way into thousands of small start-ups. And 2007 could be a turning point, as social tools move beyond the world of consumers into the world of business, and into the deep DNA of the enterprise. Cutter Senior Consultant and Web 2.0 guru Stowe Boyd explores what this will mean for business IT, how it will reflect back on Web 2.0, and the future marketplace for enterprise applications and architecture.

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Innovation and Risk Entrepreneurship: Learning How to Profit from Risk

Keynote: Bob Charette, Fellow, Cutter Consortium, Director, Cutter Enterprise Risk Management & Governance Practice

Panelists: Bob Charette, Lou Mazzucchelli, Bart Perkins, Maria Pardee

Most corporations have a significant misconception regarding the subject of risk management. Typically, it is seen as a necessary (or mandated) but boring chore that must be performed. And it is often viewed as yet another method of bureaucratic over-management that serves only to keep the organization from achieving its objectives. The reality, however, is much different.

In his keynote presentation, Cutter Consortium Fellow and risk management expert Bob Charette explains the philosophy of risk entrepreneurship - risk management as played by the pros. Risk Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. In its purest form, risk entrepreneurship is little more than controlled organizational aggression. Risk-entrepreneurial companies are able to transform sources of risk from competitive liabilities into marketable business assets. These risk-entrepreneurial organizations are also able to use risk to create business obstacles for their competitors. Bob Charette will build upon the simple notion that the business exists to minimize the risks to its customers in the way that's least risky for itself, with the goal of creating a profitable customer-for-life. He'll demonstrate how, by applying skills in risk entrepreneurship, your organization will be able to understand what truly drives its customers' needs, and put itself in position to innovatively meet these needs before any of its competitors.

You'll discover how your organization can manage risk in a purposeful and disciplined manner to create innovative solutions for its customers and itself, and how, through risk entrepreneurship, your organization can combine efficiency and creativity to create lasting competitiveness.

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Case Study: Managing IT Priorities at Volkswagen of America

Keynote: Rogelio Oliva, Senior Consultant, Cutter Business-IT Strategies Practice

Panelists: Rogelio Oliva, Francisco Javier Gómez Díaz, Warren Ritchie, Mike Rosen

Rogelio Oliva will lead you through this Harvard Business School case discussion, which describes the efforts of Volkswagen of America, the U.S. subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, to arrive at a process for setting IT funding priorities so that they align with business priorities and the company's overall strategy. VWoA's process is carefully thought out and executed, but still encounters difficulties. The case deals with Enterprise Architecture and issues of innovation, demonstrating the details and difficulties of setting priorities for use of a scarce organizational resource. It provides opportunities to critique the company's efforts and to propose alternative approaches.

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Pursuing Perfection: The Art and Paradox of Leadership

Keynote: Paul Robertson, Visiting Professor, Art and Leadership, Copenhagen Business School, Visiting Professor, Music and Medicine, Peninsula Medical School, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium Innovation Practice

Panelists: Paul Robertson, Vince Kellen, Dr. Julio César Margáin y Compéan, Sheleen Quish

Leading a diverse and talented team into "peak creative territory" demands painstaking patience, perseverance, diligent manipulation, integrity, and infinite psychological complexity - skills not always typical of so-called "natural leaders". Why is this? Because natural leaders frequently suffer from a compelling clarity of vision. Such unequivocal idealism is inspirational, but it is most effective in immature organizations.

In his keynote presentation, Paul Robertson, founder and former leader for 34 years of the world-renowned Medici String Quartet, Visiting Professor in Music and Medicine at one of the UK's leading medical universities, and an authority on music and the brain, draws upon his personal leadership experiences to highlight the paradoxes and conflicts inherent in effective leadership. He will demonstrate the art of leadership, and reveal how you can learn to enjoy a leadership process that harnesses uncertainty to stimulate the vital creative energy your organization needs to be innovative and remain competitive.

In this thought provoking and unusual presentation, Paul Robertson calls upon contemporary science and music to help senior business executives discover new cognitive and emotional markers that can make the difference between leadership success and failure.

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Is Innovation a Relevant Concept for IT?

Keynote: Lynne Ellyn, Fellow, Cutter Business Technology Council, CIO, DTE Energy

Often when people talk of innovation, what they're really talking about invention. Invention is cool; invention is exciting. Though real IT invention is not the norm (it typically happens only in product companies), every company has the opportunity for IT innovation -- a spiraling-up of ideas that improve the effectiveness of IT practices -- that can be even more exciting than an invention on the business bottom line.

In her keynote presentation, Lynne Ellyn, CIO of DTE Energy will divulge why she believes innovation is not only relevant, but required, for IT. The constraints put on IT departments call for innovative solutions to problems such as changes in business requirements, decaying legacy systems, decreased budgets, and how to implement new technologies. You'll learn to think about innovation as a mind set, and understand why the most important thing a CIO can do is support novel approaches, be receptive to new ideas, encourage experimentation, and have good judgment -- that is, set the tone for innovation. Through examples of successful innovation at DTE and in other organizations, Lynne Ellyn will demonstrate some very practical aspects of innovation and explain just how IT can step up to innovation's challenge.

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Summit 2007: Trends & Implications

Keynote: Tom DeMarco, Fellow, Cutter Business Technology Council, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium Enterprise Risk Managament & Governance and Agile Project Management Practices

Cutter Fellow Tom DeMarco will not only lead you through our unique program of keynotes and interactive debate, he'll pull together the Trends and Implications revealed throughout the Summit in his closing keynote.

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Roundtables

Like a special interest group meeting, the Summit's Roundtable sessions offer an opportunity to discuss nuts and bolts challenges. Starting with a common pain point, delegates and speakers alike challenge one another and brainstorm on best practices for overcoming obstacles to success.

Web 2.0: What's Under the Hood?

Interactive Breakfast Roundtable: John Tibbetts, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium Enterprise Architecture and Agile Project Management Practices

Web 2.0 gets down to cases in this roundtable discussion led by Cutter Senior Consultant John Tibbetts. John discusses three principle development approaches for Web 2.0—Ajax, Flex, and the Google Web Toolkit. He shares his impression of their strengths and weaknesses, shows examples of rich clients developed using these approaches, and offers a glimpse of what was involved in creating them.

Contracting Agile Development – Thoughts and Experience Around the World

Interactive Breakfast Roundtable: Jens Coldewey, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium Agile Project Management Practice

Jens Coldewey leads this roundtable discussion by bringing into question the contract issues — which are quite different in different regions and countries around the world — as well as the cultural issues and unsettled legal questions and approaches you often find to “solve” these issues, which the participants of this session will debate.

A Focus on IT Services: ITIL -- The Connective Tissue Within the IT Organization

Interactive Lunch Session: Bob Benson, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium Business-IT Strategies Practice

ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) describes a standard set of IT service and support processes, targeted to provide high-quality services to IT users. Many believe ITIL is extremely helpful to IT managers by describing best practices in providing IT services. In this luncheon discussion, Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Bob Benson will address the questions: What exactly is ITIL?, Is it really "best practice"?, and How does ITIL relate to other IT management disciplines such as EA, agile methodologies, and portfolio management? This session is the place to pose your own IT services questions, get insight from Bob, and learn from others experienced with ITIL practices.

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Enterprise Architecture: It's Not Just for IT Anymore

Interactive Lunch Session: Mike Rosen, Director, Cutter Consortium Enterprise Architecture Practice and Jeroen van Tyn, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium Enterprise Architecture Practice

Achieving Business-IT alignment is the nirvana of enterprise architecture (EA), but too often EA flounders from exactly the misalignment it assumes to address. Business architecture must ultimately be the source of requirements for IT architecture. Yet, business owners are not engaged in the architecture process. In this interactive luncheon session, Cutter Senior Consultants Mike Rosen and Jeroen van Tyn will discuss this paradox and describe a process for better aligning enterprise IT solutions with enterprise business needs. Join this luncheon discussion and come away with practical advice for getting business and IT to understand each other's roles and needs in a way that leads your enterprise toward a common goal.

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Procurement Strategies for Business-IT Leaders

Breakfast Roundtable: Bart Perkins Senior Consultant with Cutter Consortium's Sourcing & Vendor Relationships Practice

Today, more applications are purchased than are developed in-house. Poor buying decisions can cost your organization considerably more than the dollars spent. But if you make buying decisions part of a disciplined, enterprise-wide process that is guided by your IT architecture, procurement can become a pivotal tool that frees up resources that can then be invested in other value-adding IT activities.

In this roundtable, Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Bart Perkins will help you understand the strategic advantages of developing a sound procurement process that allows your enterprise to not only cut costs, but also to come to win-win contracts with critical suppliers. Based on his experience developing and implementing procurement strategies and policies in large organizations, Bart offers guidance on how you can sell such a process in your organization and ensure it becomes an adhered-to practice.