In the days of large waterfall projects, organizations made the assumption that a software budget was allocated one-third per major category: analysis and design, develop, test. This was the rule of thumb that was used to generate a high-level estimate (HLE). This rule of thumb was great when it was applied evenly to all three categories. However, what usually happened on software projects is that the first two categories needed more time and it inevitably came at the expense of testing in an effort to stay on budget.

In this on-demand webinar, Cutter Senior Consultant Diana Larsen leads you through an overview of the process for planning, designing, and conducting a liftoff, with agile chartering at its core. 

We are rapidly moving to a world where individuals don’t switch off their technologies, and companies can’t switch off their technologies. Head-up displays, image recognition, wearable technologies, virtual reality, a revolution in manufacturing technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT), super-dense computer memory … the list goes on and on! But what does this mean for the future of enterprise architecture (EA) — as a discipline, as a process, and as it informs the nature of an enterprise?

Emerging technologies and digital disruption will transform the enterprise, but they will also transform the ways in which we architect. What will this mean for enterprise architecture in general and for the role of the enterprise architect? How will EA help enterprises to collaborate with one another? What will these changes mean for the nature of the enterprise and its architecture? In this issue of Cutter IT Journal, our authors provide their practical insights and guidance on disruption and emergence and what they mean for EA.

The need for an archi­tectural viewpoint that can rationalize and maintain coherence across the entire enterprise has greatly increased. This need is driven by the disruptive emergence of technologies, which in turn has made possible ever more complex global enterprise and trans-enterprise structures. In this article I offer guidance for how to evolve EA in a way that turns this complexity from a liability into an asset, building on 21st-century tooling and technology and a digital-generation mindset.

The smartphone is increasingly the hub for personal information and identity. People are collecting, and often willing to share, information that fundamentally changes the way that businesses inter­act with them. Enterprise architects can no longer be content looking at the boundaries of our own ­organizations. We need to model the way our stakeholders operate.

We begin this article with a case study that illustrates the challenges faced by enterprise architecture in the big data space. We then outline a new approach to enterprise architecture that we believe will help organizations better embrace the benefits big data has to offer.

Digital transformation requires a well-orchestrated, innovative, and collaborative approach from the EA perspective. However, in most modern enterprises, digital transformation is an ongoing — and perhaps unending — activity. Continuous technological changes result in continuous transformation that in turn result in “Agile” enterprises.

If we’re going to discuss disruptive forces in enterprise architecture (EA), we ought to ask if EA itself is at risk of disruption. Is there a customer base that currently does not value EA but could benefit from a simpler version of it? A truly effective enterprise architecture should be something that senior executives in an enterprise use to manage their business on a day-to-day basis, that guides the implementation of strategy, and that helps them in communicating and implementing change.

In this issue of The Cutter Edge: The Ethical Challenges of a Robotics Revolution | The Role of EA in an Age of Terrorism | The Human Side of Business Transformation Webinar.

Whether it is data warehouses or marts, data lakes, or reservoirs, the IT industry has a penchant for metaphor. The subliminal images conjured in the human mind by the above terms are, in my opinion, of critical importance in guiding thinking about the fundamental meanings and architectures of these constructs. Thus, a data warehouse is a large, cavernous, but well-organized location for gathering and storing data prior to its final use and a place where consumers are less than welcome for fear of being knocked down by a forklift truck. A data mart, on the other hand, creates an image of something between your friendly corner store and Walmart.

The current market for IoT implementation platforms is still very much developing. Consequently, IoT cloud products and services are evolving steadily and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future as the market for connected platforms and services accelerates over the next few years in response to the demand from end-user organizations for practical IoT implementa­tion and data management and analysis tools. That said, a considerable number of products are available from a range of vendors, and here, Curt Hall surveys them.

The current market for IoT implementation platforms is still very much developing. Consequently, IoT cloud products and services are evolving steadily and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future as the market for connected platforms and services accelerates over the next few years in response to the demand from end-user organizations for practical IoT implementa­tion and data management and analysis tools. That said, a considerable number of products are available from a range of vendors, and here, Curt Hall surveys them.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is driving demand for cloud-based platforms designed for building and managing connected solutions and for storing and analyzing the data they generate. This Executive Report examines the available products for implementing IoT applications and services, including cloud-based IoT infrastructure platforms, IoT infrastructure services, cloud-based IoT data management and analysis platforms and services, and industry/domain-specific IoT solutions and commercial applications.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is driving demand for cloud-based platforms designed for building and managing connected solutions and for storing and analyzing the data they generate. This Executive Report examines the available products for implementing IoT applications and services, including cloud-based IoT infrastructure platforms, IoT infrastructure services, cloud-based IoT data management and analysis platforms and services, and industry/domain-specific IoT solutions and commercial applications.

The use of vendor panels has been standard practice in business and government for some time; indeed, you probably don’t give it much thought. However, panels are grossly underutilized, despite receiving the highest “very satisfied” score with customers relative to sole sourcing (single suppliers) and head contracting (prime contractors with subcontractors).

Explaining the poor utilization of panels is not so simple. There are a myriad of traps that organizations fall into. This Executive Update explains the common traps and provides the tricks to leverage your use of panels.

Business continuity planning, information security governance, and IT governance are critical activities in managing the operations of today’s organizations. Traditionally, these areas have been handled as separate and distinct activities. Effective organizations can no longer afford to manage these activities separately if they wish to streamline planning, guarantee adequate response to business-impacting events, and control costs.

This Executive Update discusses the strategies and objectives of automating the SDLC processes through IT tools, the execution methodology and framework, key execution challenges, and the benefits derived. We use a real-life case study at a large stock exchange based in the Asia-Pacific region to describe a pragmatic and holistic approach for automation that resulted in substantial ROI.

The enterprise players' IoT platforms are, for the most part, comprehensive IoT implementation environments providing platform-as-a-service (PaaS) capabilities. However, in addition to supporting the infrastructure requirements necessary for building, connecting, and managing IoT connected products and applications, they are also designed to integrate with, and take advantage of, the back-end, infrastructure, communications, process management/workflow, and analytics capabilities provided by the various business components of their respective vendors' ERP, CRM, BI, cloud, industrial control, and other enterprise software offerings.

This workshop is designed to help managers and executives build a more agile organization -- one that is able to detect and react to change. 

Learn how to build a strategy around techniques including user experience (UX) design, software analytics, serious games, and even research techniques borrowed from anthropology and psychology.

Many CIOs and CTOs have no idea how the business units see “participatory governance” or “digital trans­formation.” Exhausted from the climb, or distracted by the demands of IT-as-usual, they have no energy left for personal or professional transformations. This Executive Update is not for business-as-usual CIOs and CTOs. It is for real technology chiefs who want to participate in — and lead — digital transformation.

Social business analytics is the most complex form of social media analysis because it involves analyzing unstructured social data in combination with structured data and other content maintained in enterprise sources. This requires an infrastructure for sourcing, managing, and analyzing social and enterprise data, and for integrating the findings back into the organization's enterprise data analysis and decision-support processes.

This case study explores how Cutter's team, headed by Lynn Winterboer, helped an $18b organization deliver reliable and timely reporting with Agile Analytics.

All friction is suicidal because it is your energy being wasted unnecessarily. We don’t have that much energy to waste in fighting with ourselves.

— Zen Master Osho