Today’s decision support tools are useful but limited — and running algorithms can be computationally expensive. We need statistical shortcuts that simplify incredibly complex equations so that they can run on today’s hardware. This Executive Update highlights the “quantum leap” and how it will end estimating and solve equations in their full complexity. Instead of waiting 24 hours, the solution might only take a second. Within the next 10-20 years, the quantum computing era can lead us to a fully intelligent enterprise.

When cultivating great innovation teams, impactful visioning addresses the central need for purpose, the strategic foresight for leveraging emotional intelligence, the balancing of goals and mission, and mindfully organizing the teams. This Advisor explores the role of impactful visioning on innovation teams.

Myles Suer and John Wills address how to ready data for analysis and competitive advantage. They compare and contrast how legacy companies differ from startup enterprises in terms of data history, governance processes, and management experience. They explore in great depth the importance of properly cataloging data for eventual strategic use. An important lasting lesson of their article is the importance of people in maximizing the business results from any data strategy and technology investment.

Understanding what the transition to sustainability means for the organization is as important in the overall transition as developing the list of what to do. In this Advisor, we explore how leveraging an architectural approach for the initiative begins with understanding the business motivation and translating the motivation into new business and operating models, strategies, objectives, and tactics. The next step is to understand how the newly articulated models, goals, tactics, and so on, fit in the overall enterprise. This is one place that an architect’s big-picture view is invaluable.

Alanah Mitchell offers a five-step model to help firms successfully transition to post-pandemic hybrid work arrangements. Her recommendations for leaders include specific guidance about identifying purpose, accommodating needed flexibility, integrating IT, heightening employee experience, and incorporating substantial employee input. Her insightful ideas and central framework pinpoint the critical questions organizations must credibly answer in managing the indispensable human elements of the emerging workplace.

This article identifies resilience as the most prominent and lasting lesson of the pandemic. The authors point to the ingenuity, adaptability, and perseverance of the human spirit during times of challenge as a hallmark that can bolster organizations in the future. The piece explores the value of boosting employee resilience and includes detailed actions leaders can take to invest in employee well-being, enhance workplace culture, and drive performance.

Cutter Consortium Fellow Steve Andriole opens the issue with a fundamental question of the times, "What's different about pre- versus post-pandemic technology adoption?" He addresses the timeless imperative for technology leaders to be effective both strategically and operationally.

Cutter Consortium Fellow Steve Andriole opens the issue with a fundamental question of the times, "What's different about pre- versus post-pandemic technology adoption?" He addresses the timeless imperative for technology leaders to be effective both strategically and operationally.

To help leaders navigate the "next normal" of the business world, the four articles in this issue focus on key lessons learned during the pandemic that will have lasting and substantive effects on business for the intermediate and longer term.

This Advisor considers a few qualities that an enterprise architect must have. The goal is to provide a starting point for using the framework of architecture quality attributes to understand desirable traits in an architect.

In Part I of this two-part Executive Update series on business architecture and sustainability, we provide an overview of the circular economy and the strategic challenges it presents and demonstrate how business architecture provides the means for a formal, robust transition to the circular economy.

This edition of The Cutter Edge explores how data demands a deep understanding of the trade-off between ethical business behaviors and unrestrained competition, three specific sources of organizational stress and the strategies for alleviating this stress, and more.

This edition of The Cutter Edge explores how data demands a deep understanding of the trade-off between ethical business behaviors and unrestrained competition, three specific sources of organizational stress and the strategies for alleviating this stress, and more.

According to findings from Cutter Consortium’s recent survey on intelligent process automation (IPA) in the enterprise, a fairly high amount of interest exists among end-user organizations for using cognitive systems in their IPA efforts, with approximately one-third indicating they would like to do so. In this Advisor, we take a closer look at cognitive computing systems and how their use can support organizations' process automation efforts.

In Part VII of this Executive Update series on IPA in the enterprise, we examine survey findings pertaining to how organizations view the success of their IPA efforts so far and whether they believe the technology will eventually live up to expectations.

Tech accessibility is best served when there is inclusive design for people with disabilities (PWD) that starts from the design/user research phase and carries through the software development stage to the marketing cycle. When accessibility has not been embedded in the DevOps process, it shows.

Tech accessibility is best served when there is inclusive design for people with disabilities (PWD) that starts from the design/user research phase and carries through the software development stage to the marketing cycle. When accessibility has not been embedded in the DevOps process, it shows.

Software systems are different. We know this because we make a mess of them all the time. If airplanes and flights had the same failure rates as software, there would be no aviation industry. Why they are different isn’t a question many have taken the time to ask. The answer to this lies first in understanding uncertainty.

Portfolio management is a valuable capability for the execution of corporate strategy. However, results often fail to meet expectations. But overcoming overoptimistic expectations and poor execution is less challenging with a realistic roadmap and framework. To be truly effective, portfolio management should be an extension and execution of corporate strategy, as is explored in this Advisor.

Portfolio management is a valuable capability for the execution of corporate strategy. However, results often fail to meet expectations. But overcoming overoptimistic expectations and poor execution is less challenging with a realistic roadmap and framework. To be truly effective, portfolio management should be an extension and execution of corporate strategy, as is explored in this Advisor.

Some people might argue that their data architecture team has defined their data. This may be true, but even in the best of cases, existing data definitions rarely reflect the breadth, clarity, and rationalized business perspectives required to fully represent information as it is viewed by the business as a whole. But there is a discipline that if applied properly can help.

The potential of information — for good or for ill — far exceeds that of mere data. This Advisor explores how we need to change our focus from data to information in order to see more clearly why and how our IT industry often colludes in the demise of truth and supports the spread of disinformation.

This Executive Update redefines the notion of nonfunctional requirements in terms of a complexity science–based approach to software engineering. We introduce two new terms — hyperliminality and hyperliminal coupling — which provide a new way to describe nonfunctional requirements.

This Executive Update redefines the notion of nonfunctional requirements in terms of a complexity science–based approach to software engineering. We introduce two new terms — hyperliminality and hyperliminal coupling — which provide a new way to describe nonfunctional requirements.

A 10-month timeline, the biggest budget the company ever committed to a "programming project," and a guy who is in way over his head. Sounds like the perfect IT horror story (spoiler alert: our hero and his project survive!)