Welcome to the eighth annual IT budget issue of Cutter Benchmark Review. In each installment, CBR gathers and analyzes fresh data to understand both the state of IT budgeting in the current year and the emerging trends that can be seen by looking at the changes taking place (or not taking place) between years.

"The popularity of social networking sites, coupled with our 24/7, always-on mobile devices, means that data and opinions are always 'flowing.'"

-- Matt Ganis and Avinash Kohirkar, Guest Editors

As has been our tradition for the last several years, we've compiled the five most intriguing articles published by the Business Technology Strategies practice this year for today's Advisor. How did we come up with this list?

As has been our tradition for the last several years, we've compiled the most intriguing articles published by the Agile Product & Project Management practice this year for today's Advisor. How did we come up with this list?

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.

-- Albert Einstein

Organizations have had the option of using high-performance analytic databases1 in public cloud environments like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) platforms, among others, for several years now.

Our research, which we describe here and in greater detail in a recent Executive Report (see "A Culture of Resilience: Preparing for the Unexpected"), shows how several "high-performing" organizations employ what we call a "culture of organizational resilience" in order to help manage risk and uncertainty. We evaluated organizations that already had comprehensive risk management systems in place, ranging from tools and techniques to forecast risks to business continuity and crisis-management planning.

In 2002, Cutter Consortium conducted its first comprehensive survey of the state of risk management practice in the IT community, which we duplicated in 2006 and again this year.1,2 In Part I of this three-part Execu

In 2002, Cutter Consortium conducted its first comprehensive survey of the state of risk management practice in the IT community, which we duplicated in 2006 and again this year.1,2 In Part I of this three-part Execu

The strongest Agile PMOs I've seen are very good at helping teams that are new to Agile "hold the Agile process" and not succumb to the temptation to start making exceptions.

Last June I discussed how complex event processing (CEP)1 was receiving considerable interest from organizations due to its ability to increase operational efficiency by identifying and interpreting the effect of seemingly unrelated events taking place across the enterprise, and then notify

Gamification is a tech industry buzzword referring to the use of gaming techniques in non-game applications. Big Data refers to data having properties like huge volume, high velocity, variety, and variability. A lot of people are already talking about Big Data, but many people question what to do with this data and how to make actionable insights out of it.

Gamification is a tech industry buzzword referring to the use of gaming techniques in non-game applications. Big Data refers to data having properties like huge volume, high velocity, variety, and variability. A lot of people are already talking about Big Data, but many people question what to do with this data and how to make actionable insights out of it.

In adhering to the principle of triangulation, I have found that the three basic viewpoints for service or product health are: (1) the external subjective (customer satisfaction), (2) the external objective (usage), and (3) the internal objective (delivery). In this Executive Update, I explore these viewpoints, which cover three critical perspectives when looking at the health of a service or product.

This Executive Report looks at the many new challenges social technologies pose for enterprise architecture -- around the use of social media in an enterprise context; challenges around ownership and control of social infrastructure that lies beyond the perimeter of an enterprise; and challenges around the nature of architecture components and the architecture landscape -- and what they mean for EA teams, the enterprise architecture, and the enterprise.

This Executive Summary and its accompanying Executive Report explain the challenges posed by social technologies and describe the role and response of EA teams in some leading organizations.