For years now, I have made a good living by exploiting Geary Rummler and Alan Brache’s famous subtitle, "How to Manage the White Space in the Organization Chart" (Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space in the Organization Ch

A recent Cutter Consortium survey [1] helps shed some light on the effect that the economic downturn is having on corporate BI and data warehousing efforts. The good news is that the impact appears to have lessened, as more organizations report that the economy is no longer having a significant negative effect on their BI and data warehousing initiatives.

The aim of this Executive Update is to connect the approaches of architects and project managers in the field of IT development. Both areas of expertise have matured over time, mostly in a disconnected way, while sharing the aim of delivering IT solutions that fit their purposes. During each project period, various architecture artifacts direct the development of the IT solution. In this Update, we show how these artifacts are linked, how they connect to the project management artifacts, and how explicit connections can increase successful project delivery.

You may hear people say that BI, as we know it, is "dead." Rather than dead, BI is likely to have a renewed lease on life. As Tim O'Reilly writes:

We're moving from a world in which analysts and executives study data and make decisions to a world in which analysts study data and rewrite algorithms that make decisions.1

This is the final Executive Update in a three-part series discussing three approaches by which organizations, particularly commercial firms, can leverage virtual worlds to create and capture value.

In Part I, 1 I looked at the history of virtual worlds and defined three possible strategies. Very briefly, they are:

This is the final Executive Update in a three-part series discussing three approaches by which organizations, particularly commercial firms, can leverage virtual worlds to create and capture value.

In Part I, 1 I looked at the history of virtual worlds and defined three possible strategies. Very briefly, they are:

Fundamentally, agile business is about a dedicated and unremitting focus on two principles:

Back in March, I wrote an Advisor describing how the lack of a safety culture contributed to the fatal collision of two Washington, DC, subway trains in June 2009.1 Consequently, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) management promised that it would be taking ste

Back in March, I wrote an Advisor describing how the lack of a safety culture contributed to the fatal collision of two Washington, DC, subway trains in June 2009.1 Consequently, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) management promised that it would be taking ste

Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.

-- Thomas A. Edison

Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.

-- Thomas A. Edison

Having spent time as an executive in a large company, and having spent most of my career helping executives work on strategic problems, I have to say that I don't believe that companies set out to alienate customers. But I do believe that many don't know or don't realize the extent to which customers are angered by poor customer service.

The brand of architects is under siege. One tribal elder of EA, a recognized giant in the community, commented after hours at an industry gathering, "I am ashamed of what has happened to this profession." Architects, while some of the smartest and hardest-working people in the enterprise, are among the least understood and appreciated. The nature of the architecture exercise is not hero making. The payback from EA is not instantaneous. Architects must be smart and work in organizations that are smart -- not necessarily the norm. But there is hope.

Organizations of all shapes and sizes are seriously considering the virtual desktop infrastructure model to support their client computing needs. However, the majority of them are still somewhere between the investigation stage and trying out pilot projects.

Organizations of all shapes and sizes are seriously considering the virtual desktop infrastructure model to support their client computing needs. However, the majority of them are still somewhere between the investigation stage and trying out pilot projects.

While making predictions for the new year last December, I said that it would become more practical for end-user organizations to take advantage of social BI in 2010, because BI vendors would increase their efforts to add to their platforms social media, such as blogs, wikis, social networking, BI search, and mashups.1

Municipal government, at the city, township, and village level, is a foundation for day-to-day living. Local elected officials, city administration and staff, and volunteer boards and committees provide the services that figuratively and literally pave the environment in which residents live, work, and play.

Today governments at all levels in the US, and indeed around the world, are dealing with declining revenues and increasing costs across the board. Thus, government executives are challenged each day to do more with less -- or as Ashton B.

Contemporary information and communication technologies, particularly the technologies associated with Web 2.0, have enabled many new opportunities for organizations to effectively harness the capabilities and knowledge of potentially global crowds (activities collectively known as "crowdsourcing").

Contemporary information and communication technologies, particularly the technologies associated with Web 2.0, have enabled many new opportunities for organizations to effectively harness the capabilities and knowledge of potentially global crowds (activities collectively known as "crowdsourcing").

The practice of accomplishing tasks through collaboration and of solving problems through aggregating knowledge is as old as humanity.

The practice of accomplishing tasks through collaboration and of solving problems through aggregating knowledge is as old as humanity.

Does your organization possess a reference model for EA that goes beyond the tired, old organization chart? Traditionally, most models of EA organization have been predicated on the view of IT as a support function, as reflected in the ubiquitous organization chart showing "Architecture," in one form or another, usually either reporting to the CIO or CTO.

Companies such as Siemens USA, Best Buy, and Sun Microsystems use social media to form powerful online communities. Those communities — through an "amplification effect" — foster innovation and process improvements far more quickly than companies can achieve with traditional improvement mechanisms.

Sun cofounder Bill Joy famously observed that "innovation happens elsewhere" [1]. He went on to observe that no matter how intelligent the innovators in a company, there are far more smart people outside that company.