Business process modeling lies at the core of all attempts to visualize and manage business processes.

The phrase "disruptive technologies" entered the lexicon in 1995 with an article by Joseph Bower and Clayton Christensen1 of the Harvard Business School. It caught on immediately because it described a phenomenon that thoughtful people were at some level already aware of.

In a world where change and threat come from all sides, from familiar competitors and directions as well as from left field, it behooves all of us to consider how to fend off competitive or substitute threats arising from disruptive technology innovations. While beating disruptive technology threats is very difficult for "incumbents," it is not impossible. In this article, I present three design patterns that incumbents have used to advantage in the past, together with some tips for succeeding with each of them.

Traditionally, of all industry sectors, the high-tech community has paid the most attention to the theory of disruptive innovation and how it might affect their product strategies. Disruptive innovation was originally described by Clayton Christensen in The Innovator's Dilemma1 as a way to understand patterns of failing companies.

The modern workplace seems forever under siege from a triumvirate of disruptive forces. Some disruptions come from new processes, some from new devices, and others from complex social interactions produced by "new technology." We will focus on the last of these, which we associate mostly with "Generation Y" (broadly those born between 1975 and 1995) as they are now rising through and affecting all levels of the organization, including management.

Years ago, Fred Tuffile, an entrepreneurship professor at Bentley University and founder of several successful companies, told his class that the biggest advantage a new enterprise has over an established businesses is a blank piece of paper. It might not have any customers or money, but it does have a fresh start, some untested ideas (good or bad), and most importantly, a strong capacity for flexibility, new technology, and innovation.

This Executive Update will give you, your colleagues, and your superiors a fairly good "3D" picture of what a technical debt initiative will look like in the context of your own business imperatives and predicaments.

The phenomenal growth of digital data over the past several decades, known today as Big Data, has created a range of issues and opportunities. In the earliest days, accessible data consisted of alphanumeric records and simple text. These could be organized, managed, and stored with relative ease.

The phenomenal growth of digital data over the past several decades, known today as Big Data, has created a range of issues and opportunities. In the earliest days, accessible data consisted of alphanumeric records and simple text. These could be organized, managed, and stored with relative ease.

Around 2 pm on the 23rd of August, as I sat working at my desk in my basement office, I became mindful of an increasingly loud roar, followed by an eerie feeling that I had been teleported aboard a moving passenger train.

The phenomenal growth of digital data over the past several decades, known today as Big Data, has created a range of issues and opportunities.

The phenomenal growth of digital data over the past several decades, known today as Big Data, has created a range of issues and opportunities.

"What's after agile?" People have been asking that for a few years now.

A reader asked me about the state of cloud computing.

The year 2011 has seen a proliferation in agile adoption for data warehousing, BI, and analytics. This excites me, but I'm worried about a trend I'll call, "basic Scrum only." The lure of Scrum is that it is popular and easy to understand.

The collection of development techniques and work management practices commonly referred to as agile methods has evolved rapidly over the past decade to the point where it is difficult to find any sizable IT organization that doesn't make claim to some sort of agile initiative. Mainstream management thinkers1 have begun to take notice and to hold up agile practices as a model of self-organization for the 21st century.

As expected and sudden was the inevitable and tragic end to Steve Jobs's life, so too is it surprising yet necessary that an outpouring of praise and emotion would follow. We all loved his inventions. The Twitterverse was rightfully aflame with stories about Steve.

It seems so easy: just take an agile method of your choice -- be it Scrum or Kanban or whatever -- and include it into your organization's process handbook.

The passing of Steve Jobs on 5 October 2011 has affected all of us involved with IT to some extent, whether we use Apple products or not. Jobs was an innovator who changed consumer interaction with computing and how computer products are developed. As working IT professionals, the Cutter Business Technology Council recognizes Jobs’s genius and his impact on today’s computing environment.

The passing of Steve Jobs on 5 October 2011 has affected all of us involved with IT to some extent, whether we use Apple products or not. Jobs was an innovator who changed consumer interaction with computing and how computer products are developed. As working IT professionals, the Cutter Business Technology Council recognizes Jobs’s genius and his impact on today’s computing environment.

In August, John Zachman unveiled the new Version 3.0 of his framework.

Most employers opt to monitor what their employees do while at work. The employer's interest is to ensure that the employees perform their jobs adequately and refrain from performing harmful actions, either intentional or unintentional, that may harm the company. A few examples of such harmful actions, which an employer might want to be alerted to and potentially circumvent, include the following:

Have you ever overloaded your dishwasher? You focus completely on getting every last dish and every last glass and every last utensil loaded. Then you breathe a sigh of relief as you press "start." An hour later, as the wash cycle completes, you return to find that the dishes and glasses and utensils aren't really clean.