During the past decade we have seen a great deal of pressure placed on environmental issues. There have been more restrictive emission norms, a somewhat sense of being forced to use renewable sources of energy, the emergence of passive buildings, and even green IT. Although car and building industries present signs of real change in this area, IT industry endeavors raise some concerns on whether or not IT is truly "going green." And these are not about lack of true undertakings, but rather about two trends in applied IT covering the whole stack -- from hardware to applications.

At the time of this writing, I could find no existing laws or regulations that explicitly name Big Data within them. That could change sometime in the coming months as businesses and lawmakers realize that a variety of legal protections as well as associated information security controls are necessary to protect these digital gold mines.

A colleague and friend -- Olivier Gaudin, CEO and cofounder of Sonar -- has recently shared with me his "water leak" metaphor. The water leak metaphor asserts that resolving a technical debt situation is similar to the approach you need to take when you find water on the floor of your house.

As we explore in this Executive Report, your agile teams might not live up to their full potential due to an inappropriate work environment. Agile management innovations (AMIs) shape the organization’s environment to unleash the full potential of agile employees.

One of my tenets of modeling is "Good enough is good enough," meaning that when a model is good enough for its intended purpose, it's time to stop messing with it.

As we explore in this Executive Report, your agile teams might not live up to their full potential due to an inappropriate work environment. Agile management innovations (AMIs) shape the organization’s environment to unleash the full potential of agile employees. AMIs inspire innovations at the management level, providing greater success in terms of productivity, innovation, and employee retention. Agile management innovations (AMIs) help organizations work better with their agile teams and help those teams be more productive. AMIs create an environment supporting a state of flow for the employees through an emphasis on autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Many companies adopt an agile approach expecting increased productivity, lower time to market, and so on. At first, everything might seem straightforward: The company learns about agile, hires an agile coach who helped with the first agile team, then the second, then the third. But somewhere between the second and third teams, things begin to go awry.

The Boston Marathon bombing on 15 April and the crucial role that video played in identifying and apprehending the suspects in the days after sparked my interest in examining the current state of video analytics and, in particular, new developments with intelligent video analytics (IVA) systems.

The Boston Marathon bombing on 15 April and the crucial role that video played in identifying and apprehending the suspects in the days after sparked my interest in examining the current state of video analytics and, in particular, new developments with intelligent video analytics (IVA) systems.

This is the second Executive Update in a three-part series exploring an exciting and rapidly maturing technological trend: the layering of interactive information over the physical world in real time -- aka augmented reality (AR).

This is the second Executive Update in a three-part series exploring an exciting and rapidly maturing technological trend: the layering of interactive information over the physical world in real time -- aka augmented reality (AR).

This is the second Executive Update in a three-part series exploring an exciting and rapidly maturing technological trend: the layering of interactive information over the physical world in real time -- aka augmented reality (AR).

One of my friends wanted help in growing her business. As a local restaurant owner, she had received many accolades and encouragement to expand. Being a wise (and cautious) leader, she wanted first to see if the compliments she was receiving were warranted and whether her "product" was truly worthy of expansion. She didn't want to trust that her friends and family weren't just being nice. Rather, she wanted to measure the quality of her restaurant.

One of my friends wanted help in growing her business. As a local restaurant owner, she had received many accolades and encouragement to expand. Being a wise (and cautious) leader, she wanted first to see if the compliments she was receiving were warranted and whether her "product" was truly worthy of expansion. She didn't want to trust that her friends and family weren't just being nice. Rather, she wanted to measure the quality of her restaurant.

This simple statement -- "the soft stuff is the hard stuff" -- should appear as a screen saver on each device of every IT professional. It was true when either the management and IT guru Tom Davenport or the late reengineering guru Mike Hammer first said it, and it is still true today.

The past few months have been compelling for me in my role as a project management consultant and risk management expert.

For all independent service providers (ISVs) and IT service providers, developing cloud-based services are becoming an essential business model in order to be at par with competitors and to keep infrastructure and operational cost optimal.

For all independent service providers (ISVs) and IT service providers, developing cloud-based services are becoming an essential business model in order to be at par with competitors and to keep infrastructure and operational cost optimal.

It doesn't get much more "from the trenches" than digging in to find and fix bugs, and this is a case study based on working with a client doing exactly that. The particular issue: they were becoming increasingly unresponsive to high-priority bugs.

Many explanations and descriptions of complexity refer to, and even depend on, the notion of a system or systems. As EA also uses the notion of systems extensively, referring to systems makes it much easier to relate complexity to an EA perspective.

The more agile software development becomes mainstream, the more often I run into a typical pattern of management mismatch. It comes in several flavors. A recent client CTO who is responsible for the IT of an online store illustrates one example. “We have just raised an additional budget of 1 million Euros for this year to implement this fantastic feature,” he told me.

Last month we looked at the veracity factor in Big Data, which concerns the uncertainty of input and the need to cross-check and correct it (see "The Veracity Factor"). This is important because results in streams, such as social data comments, do not yield a precise interpretation.

Last month we looked at the veracity factor in Big Data, which concerns the uncertainty of input and the need to cross-check and correct it (see "The Veracity Factor"). This is important because results in streams, such as social data comments, do not yield a precise interpretation.

In a mutual boot-strapping beginning with the dawn of Homo sapiens, mankind and information have both exploded in variety, velocity, and volume. Our fates have been intertwined. We advance by harvesting, using, and sharing information. Along the way, information persists, mutates, and diffuses further.

The key members from the technology group are waiting to hear about the new project that the director is going to announce. The meeting is about to begin, and the room is filled with silence. They know that the project has something to do with Java, Oracle, and the cloud. The director starts explaining the importance of this strategic project and delivering it on time to the customer.