In a previous Advisor (see "Database Futures I: Big Data, Cyber Security, IoT, and a Database Called 'Cockroach'"), I suggested that database thinking was in the most innovative stage since the 1970s and 1980s.

The goal of this Executive Report is to present six digital-driven transformations affecting 21st-century organizations. These are neither technologies nor business models per se; rather, they are transformations that define the connecting tissue between digital technologies and business strategies.

The goal of this Executive Report is to present six digital-driven transformations affecting 21st-century organizations. These are neither technologies nor business models per se; rather, they are transformations that define the connecting tissue between digital technologies and business strategies.

The purpose of the accompanying Executive Report is to define the nature and impact of "digital transformations" in the eyes, minds, and hands of CIOs and other CxO leaders: "eyes" in the sense of recognizing six concrete transformations; "minds" in the sense of understanding the meaning of these transformations for the organizations; and "hands" in the sense of driving some actions.

Much has been said about innovation. The argument is twofold:

The purpose of the accompanying Executive Report is to define the nature and impact of "digital transformations" in the eyes, minds, and hands of CIOs and other CxO leaders: "eyes" in the sense of recognizing six concrete transformations; "minds" in the sense of understanding the meaning of these transformations for the organizations; and "hands" in the sense of driving some actions.

Much has been said about innovation. The argument is twofold:

This Executive Update looks at the concept of privacy in software development and examines the responses of survey participants who report they actually work with "privacy-sensitive" software.

Professions are like people: as they get older they learn new things and forget old ones. Sometimes in the excitement of learning new things, they forget really important old ones.

Roadmaps are one of the core tools that enterprise architects use. In this Executive Report, we examine contemporary EA use of the key types of roadmaps. We explore best practices for the presentation of roadmaps and explain how roadmaps relate to other EA deliverables. We also show how roadmaps are used to communicate with all types of stakeholders — from executive-level leaders to senior decision makers, from business and IT management to IT operations and development and to portfolio and project management teams. Finally, the report examines how roadmaps address architecture partitioning and multiple levels of architecture planning as well as how roadmaps relate to strategic vectors and the delivery of business value

Recently, I supported a team that was unhappy with its Scrum implementation.

In its early manifestations, enterprise architecture was an IT function. The chief enterprise architect generally reported to the CIO, and the enterprise architecture work was focused on IT issues such as enterprise application integration, and (the lack of) technology standards across the enterprise. But just as business process reengineering (BPR) efforts illuminated the need to consider technology in BPR, so too did enterprise architecting efforts illuminate the need to consider business process -- and more broadly, business architecture -- in IT reengineering.

In January, I discussed key developments with IBM's Watson natural language understanding and analytics question-and-answering system (see "IBM Bets the Future on Watson").

In January, I discussed key developments with IBM's Watson natural language understanding and analytics question-and-answering system (see "IBM Bets the Future on Watson").

Corporate leadership needs to understand that the threat is real and it is only going to get worse. Security measures need to be better observed, and GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) automation is mandatory. Importantly, risk needs to be reevaluated, particularly for those areas that are likely to be subjects of attacks.

This Executive Update shares an approach on how you can enable self-service for a specific BI end-user community. The approach involves first assessing the analytical appetite of the user group and positioning those professionals in a three-tiered pyramid before applying the appropriate technology strategies.

How do business technology professionals stay current or, ideally, ahead of the constantly changing business technology curve? Unlike lots of disciplines, technology is an always-moving target. Business models change just as quickly.

Early in my career as a project manager I invited my client to work with me on a particularly complex software development project that my team was ready to start for them.

Enterprise software has come in waves over the years. The first wave introduced mainframe applications that rested on the business premise that automating certain routine operations could power a large company to new levels of productivity and efficiency.

This Executive Update examines key trends and developments around the application of predictive maintenance in industrial and enterprise operations and discusses a real-world application example intended to optimize earth-moving equipment used in mining operations.

This Executive Update examines key trends and developments around the application of predictive maintenance in industrial and enterprise operations and discusses a real-world application example intended to optimize earth-moving equipment used in mining operations.

Marketing has always been a first mover in digital technologies, being vital for monetization of all processes on the Web and leading the way for communications and service delivery.

Marketing has always been a first mover in digital technologies, being vital for monetization of all processes on the Web and leading the way for communications and service delivery.

Some of us -- who tend to be leaders -- almost enjoy making decisions, but are such people better decision makers than others who are more deliberate? Not necessarily. Decisiveness is generally considered a virtue, but being decisive for its own sake can be as dangerous as protracted vacillation.

Our goal in this issue is not to put a finite point on decision making but to expose ourselves to the vast array of decision-making complexities. All of this issue's articles give us more to think about, as well as practical tools. We didn't put this issue together to ruin your week. We put it together to arm you with insights. We are confident that readers will store some of the ideas we deliver here somewhere in the backs of their minds and that this information will be triggered at an appropriate time.