Over the last decade, software developers Mary and Tom Poppendieck and others have pointed out that just as in manufacturing, software development benefits from Lean thinking. More recently, Lean methods have extended to broader business processes, including both development and operations (DevOps).

Infectious disease experts from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and medical advisors from other US public health agencies have repeatedly stated that the US healthcare system is more than capable of dealing with any incidences of Ebola that occur in the US. Since the outbreak began in West Africa, the press has cited various officials saying that the US -- indeed, the western world in general -- leads in understanding Ebola and how to contain the disease.

The attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on 11 September 2001 exposed the need for developing business continuity planning and disaster recovery (BCP-DR) strategies. After those attacks, IT infrastructure planners and data center architects across the world started incorporating alternate sites and high availability of applications and services in their designs.

By looking ahead to a time when monitoring blood sugar and delivering insulin can occur in real time, one can see a time when worldwide diabetes might be brought under control, and with it all its terrible side effects. Moreover, research has already shown promise that blood sugar monitoring can be made nonintrusive. Google, for one, has patented a contact lens that monitors blood sugar via the fluids in the eye.

By looking ahead to a time when monitoring blood sugar and delivering insulin can occur in real time, one can see a time when worldwide diabetes might be brought under control, and with it all its terrible side effects. Moreover, research has already shown promise that blood sugar monitoring can be made nonintrusive. Google, for one, has patented a contact lens that monitors blood sugar via the fluids in the eye.

This Executive Update explores the key dimensions of development intelligence, including the types of development and organizational levels, and analytics maturity and what is measured.

This Executive Update explores the key dimensions of development intelligence, including the types of development and organizational levels, and analytics maturity and what is measured.

The Executive Update takes a look at the host of C-suite technology titles and discusses what they mean to enterprise's today.

The Executive Update takes a look at the host of C-suite technology titles and discusses what they mean to enterprise's today.

Earlier this month I participated in an international symposium mounted in honor of Professor Piet Ribbers' retirement from Tilburg University, Netherlands. Piet has been a leader for more than 30 years through his teaching, research, and with his development of graduate and professional programs in information management.

Earlier this month I participated in an international symposium mounted in honor of Professor Piet Ribbers' retirement from Tilburg University, Netherlands. Piet has been a leader for more than 30 years through his teaching, research, and with his development of graduate and professional programs in information management.

One of the more frequent approaches to "scaling Agile" is a set of development teams doing what they call "Scrum" in a larger project. The overall project management has heard of Agile and has also given its consent to use Scrum, but otherwise is working the same way it has worked for 20 years. After all, managers argue, "Scrum is only a development method." Some consider this approach "disciplined" for whatever reason; others call it "Scrum inside a waterfall." Here's a war story about what can happen in this setting.

Evolution is one of the eight factors that lies at the heart of enterprise architecture (see "Eight Factors in All Enterprise Architectures"). Roadmaps help analyze, plan, and manage architecture evolution. Roadmapping is the process of creating and using roadmaps, and it is one of the key capabilities for members of an EA team.

In this Executive Update we look at how to use mobile computing to broaden the impact of enterprise applications, and we discuss the complexities that such an approach entails. We examine how state-of-the-art dependency management tools can help manage this complexity and prevent systems from becoming opaque and brittle, and we see where these tools fit into end-to-end metadata architecture.

Another week, and yet another news story about a new or upgraded IT system released before its time.

Part I of this three-part Executive Update series provided a short overview of how information security and privacy controls are -- or more often are not -- built into software, and also reviewed the responses to the first set of questions of a Cutter survey on developing privacy-sensitive software.

The subject that every distributed Agile team is questioning is the topic of setting up visual walls. Conflicts arise when purists argue in support of setting up visual boards across all locations, while the distributed teams consider it an inconvenience.

In a previous Advisor (see "Mobility: Did Thee Feel the Architecture Move?"), we observed that the enterprise's architecture has begun a move toward the edges of the enterprise. And, with that extension to the "edge," it is obvious that the enterprise can no longer be the sole architect of the structures that prop up the edifice of business.

A beautiful app with a poorly defined feature set or a terrible infrastructure ultimately doesn't stand much chance of success.

For an organization to flourish, different people must take on leadership roles at all levels of the hierarchy: from frontline staff and managers who must lead small groups of direct reports, peers, or projects through various processes and decisions; to middle managers who lead senior staff, other managers, their peers, and their own management; to upper-level managers and executives who lead larger groups of people, entire departments, and substantial corporate-wide initiatives.

This Executive Report explores what you can do as the leader of your IT organization to promote more effective leadership at all levels and by all members of your team. By developing the capacity of people to think, act, and respond as leaders to the situations they encounter, you will build a stronger organization and achieve your goals more effectively.

We know that stakeholders are those individuals who are actively involved in our projects and/or have a valued interest in the outcome of those projects. However, if you've ever managed a project, I'm sure you know that even though those stakeholders may be involved in our projects or are interested -- be it financially or otherwise -- in the outcome or success of our projects, that doesn't mean they will be involved or engaged along the way, even when it may be in their best interest to be so.

This Executive Update is focused on drilling home the importance of defining a true minimum viable product (MVP) and having the discipline to stick to that definition. We will discuss the payoff for your hard work and discipline.