When there are administrative tasks that need to be done, there are certainly ways to make them less unpleasant and frustrating, and more rewarding and fulfilling. Here are seven tips for reducing the burden of governance and turning a necessary obligation into something more useful and beneficial.

The healthcare industry has embraced the Internet of Things (IoT) and is making widespread use of sensors in a range of applications and services. One key trend is the development of connected medical devices designed to be worn by patients (or implanted in them) to communicate their biosensor-based readings to wearers, physicians, and other medical personnel via Wi-Fi, cellular, or Bluetooth communications. By analyzing vital patient data and warning about changes in their health conditions or status, connected medical devices can help reduce costs, readmissions, and provide better-quality care to patients overall.

The healthcare industry has embraced the Internet of Things (IoT) and is making widespread use of sensors in a range of applications and services. One key trend is the development of connected medical devices designed to be worn by patients (or implanted in them) to communicate their biosensor-based readings to wearers, physicians, and other medical personnel via Wi-Fi, cellular, or Bluetooth communications. By analyzing vital patient data and warning about changes in their health conditions or status, connected medical devices can help reduce costs, readmissions, and provide better-quality care to patients overall.

In this Executive Update we present survey findings pertaining to mobile technology adoption trends in the enterprise, the strategies organizations currently use, the strategic importance they place on mobile technology, and the success rate of responding organizations' mobile initiatives to date.

In this Executive Update we present survey findings pertaining to mobile technology adoption trends in the enterprise, the strategies organizations currently use, the strategic importance they place on mobile technology, and the success rate of responding organizations' mobile initiatives to date.

"You have reached the end of voice mail."

Recently, I have been involved in a fairly complex interactive voice response (IVR) redo, and I have begun to wonder if we have been working on the wrong technology. Most of us struggle with IVR systems more and more often, challenged to "touch 1 if ...," "touch 2 if ...," and more. Indeed, I have changed vendors a number of times after becoming frustrated with their IVR or voicemail applications.

Today, progressive organizations motivated to orchestrate around the philosophy of continual transformation are looking at the practices and principles of enterprise architecture (EA). In this Executive Report, we share some insights on how companies across multiple industries are applying a new mindset to enable organizational agility and the adaptive enterprise through the use of EA.

When you introduce Agile into existing organizations, you regularly get two types of seemingly conflicting results if you ask for employee satisfaction. First you get the satisfaction boost. Once the teams have learned to deliver valuable stuff, they experience the satisfaction of accomplishment. They finally deliver and get feedback from real customers. In most organizations this leads to a significant increase in employee satisfaction. This effect is so consistent that it is one of the very few things I actually promise before starting a transition.

In this Executive Update, Tom Grant explores one of the biggest requirements challenges: the lack of information about the business context behind the demand for new software and the adoption of it. Without this context, changing the requirements media is about as meaningful as the choice between reading War and Peace as a novel or as a comic book adaptation. If you don't know anything about Europe in the age of Napoleon, much of War and Peace will make little to no sense, regardless of format.

This Summary outlines how companies across multiple industries are applying a new mindset to enable organizational agility and the adaptive enterprise through the use of enterprise architecture.

A business architecture function can be a sustainable option to design and implement transformation opportunities. Once an organization decides to take this path, it needs to ensure that the journey is smooth. In this Advisor (and in Figure 1), we highlight some pitfalls organizations should avoid when starting up the business architecture function:

It's an age-old story, which no one seems to question: any data is better than no data. This idea is absolutely wrong. The misconception may be borne of the accurate assessment that he who has data wins the argument against others who don't. But, we're not talking about using data, or measures, or information for the purpose of "winning" an argument. We're talking about using metrics for the purpose of winning in the battle for improvement. If we use measures properly, we do so to improve our business, organization, or our lives. In this respect, there are many times when having some data is not better than having none.

It's an age-old story, which no one seems to question: any data is better than no data. This idea is absolutely wrong. The misconception may be borne of the accurate assessment that he who has data wins the argument against others who don't. But, we're not talking about using data, or measures, or information for the purpose of "winning" an argument. We're talking about using metrics for the purpose of winning in the battle for improvement. If we use measures properly, we do so to improve our business, organization, or our lives. In this respect, there are many times when having some data is not better than having none.

In current organizations that have a culture where relationships are highly valued and are most often maintained and developed through a lot of face-to-face interaction, the adoption rate for a digital platform for knowledge sharing and information integration is low. Organizations need to promote a culture that motivates staff to increase usage of digital platform for knowledge sharing. Here are some of the ways I would suggest organizations go about responding to that question.

In current organizations that have a culture where relationships are highly valued and are most often maintained and developed through a lot of face-to-face interaction, the adoption rate for a digital platform for knowledge sharing and information integration is low. Organizations need to promote a culture that motivates staff to increase usage of digital platform for knowledge sharing. Here are some of the ways I would suggest organizations go about responding to that question.

Dick Nolan leads a discussion of the 21st century forces challenging the executive leadership of the modern corporation.

Building trust and partnership requires credible performance, accountability, common goals, and clear roles for all partnership members, which happens when leadership -- both business and IT -- defines the relationship in these terms.

If we're honest with ourselves, we should admit that the record of IT projects is not that impressive. For years, industry analysts and academic researchers have reported that the majority of big technology projects fail by exceeding their budgets and missing important business requirements. 1 There's muscle memory here that absolutely, positively affects how the business perceives the value and competency of their technology organizations, their vendors, and their consultants. Worse, a lot of the "trust" between technology organizations and corporate business units -- which was perhaps always overstated -- has disappeared over the decades. In some companies, because of all of the failures, the business technology relationship is downright hostile.

For the better part of the last 20 years, I have worked on the business side of the great divide between IT and the business. My experience working with IT professionals ranges from strong strategic partnerships to hostile and deliberately antagonistic politics. Reflecting on both the good and the bad times, I have identified several patterns that I believe are critical to enabling the trust required to grow true partnerships.

"Trust" is a very strong -- even loaded -- word when it's applied to working relationships. It takes us beyond issues of competence and confidence into the realm of ethics. I may think a colleague is not very good at his job, or I may lack confidence in his ability to predict when something will be done, but that is not the same as feeling he could simply be lying to me. Trust does not take root immediately, and once lost, regaining it can take much longer.

The relationship between some IT departments and their business colleagues is adversarial rather than collaborative, resulting in mistrust and conflict instead of respect and cooperation. 1 One of the causes is the inability to agree on investment and project priorities, which leads to contentious or misunderstood decisions on schedules and resource allocation and almost inevitably to wasting funds on too many failed projects -- up to 70%, if surveys are to be believed. 2 Business colleagues believe their IT counterparts favor projects they want to do rather than those that are most important to the business, whilst IT people believe business "priorities" are not always based on sound justifications and change too frequently.

Two Fortune 100 companies are struggling to compete in this fast-paced world. Does this sound familiar? Both companies were lumbering along in blind arrogance when their world changed. Why such blindness? They both held the majority share of their respective markets and were resting on their laurels -- and soon the competition came nipping at their heels. Of course, they continued to lumber. "We know what customers want" was the constant refrain. "Of course, we could be more nimble, but we just can't get IT to deliver."

The soul of the Hitchcock masterpiece Strangers on a Train is its central plot conceit: two strangers meet on a train and realize they can "solve a problem" for one another. In the film, each man has a relative he wants (at least in the abstract) to murder. If each man murders the other man's "problem," there would be two perfect crimes ...; and two problems solved.

Rigidity in an organization can have a number of significant effects, including cultural as well as process issues. Without sufficient review, the organization can become brittle and less able to adequately respond to new conditions, while seemingly remaining in compliance with all imposing standards. The brittle organization will have problems in meeting changing business conditions, and it will also be less resilient and under greater threat from sudden problems such as natural disaster or catastrophic shifts in the market or in technology.