One common belief in the industry is that the capability of delivering things quickly is a key competitive advantage. I would like to revisit the way this belief is often used in practice and propose a better way to use it.

In a recent e-mail exchange with Cutter Fellow Lynne Ellyn (SVP and CIO of DTE), she mentioned that one characteristic of agile leaders is providing focus and clarity for an organization or team. Her comments sparked my thinking about why it’s so hard to be a good agile leader.

The promise of business intelligence (BI 1.0) is finally turning the performance corner. While we're still cleaning, migrating, and securing data -- and worrying about platform compatibility -- we've also connected BI to business performance management, a step that reflects rising expectations about what the BI endgame looks like.

The promise of business intelligence (BI 1.0) is finally turning the performance corner. While we're still cleaning, migrating, and securing data -- and worrying about platform compatibility -- we've also connected BI to business performance management, a step that reflects rising expectations about what the BI endgame looks like.

Vendor management is still the rage. We talked about it a lot when outsourcing trends became clear -- when more and more companies were outsourcing a greater amount of their infrastructure and applications to partners down the street and around the world. The major outsourcing deals of the 20th century were inked in the 1990s.

Vendor management is still the rage. We talked about it a lot when outsourcing trends became clear -- when more and more companies were outsourcing a greater amount of their infrastructure and applications to partners down the street and around the world. The major outsourcing deals of the 20th century were inked in the 1990s.

If you are embracing transformation as an approach to make your business operations more effective, you are not alone. In fact, a majority of companies and government agencies in the US and other countries are considering transformation. However, it is absolutely essential that you recognize the reasons for the transformation before jumping onto the bandwagon.

Recently, I participated in a design review where the tension in the room was palpable. Talk about the business/IT divide; that was nothing compared to the development/architecture divide. The development team was defensive, resented being there, and was less than effusive in its answers to questions.

It appears that the use of text analysis and text mining software by end-user organizations has increased, as approximately one-quarter of organizations surveyed indicate that they are now analyzing text/unstructured data in some capacity to support their BI efforts.

Be honest. How well are you managing your compliance to technical regulations, requirements, policies, and procedures?

Wikipedia tells us about enterprise architecture:

The resignation of Intrigue's CTO six weeks before v1.0 of its JavaJoe product was scheduled to ship caused quite a few eyebrows to be raised. 1 While the resigning CTO indicated he was leaving to pursue an opportunity he could not afford to miss, the timing of his resignation gave rise to concerns about the readiness (or lack of it) of JavaJoe to be released as an enterprise application.

Cutter Consortium was called into a software organization by its venture capital firm to conduct a Technical Debt Assessment and Valuation. The code to be evaluated had been acquired two years prior. Until the organization built the capability to develop the code in its US headquarters, the development had continued through an outsourcing company in another country. The assessment came just as the company was about to release ~200K lines of Java code.

This Executive Update provides an abridged section of my upcoming book, Supply Chain Management: The Real WOW Factor, covering the critical strategy engagement process. I have modified it in the context of the CIO's and CTO's important role to ensure they partner with supply chain management (SCM) leaders in developing total end-to-end business processes and systems supporting the product-line strategies of their respective companies.

This Executive Update provides an abridged section of my upcoming book, Supply Chain Management: The Real WOW Factor, covering the critical strategy engagement process. I have modified it in the context of the CIO's and CTO's important role to ensure they partner with supply chain management (SCM) leaders in developing total end-to-end business processes and systems supporting the product-line strategies of their respective companies.

The Agile Triangle, shown in Figure 1, was introduced in Agile Project Management 2nd Edition) and has been the subject of several Cutter Advisors. The Agile Triangle encourages teams to be flexible, agile, and adaptable -- it alters how we view success.

Over the past few weeks, I have been reviewing the plethora of events in the news -- from the swine flu to volcanoes -- that have offered superb opportunities for lessons about what and what not to do in regard to implementing enterprise risk management.

Over the past few weeks, I have been reviewing the plethora of events in the news -- from the swine flu to volcanoes -- that have offered superb opportunities for lessons about what and what not to do in regard to implementing enterprise risk management.

There was a time when we had one telephone bill. Each month, AT&T billed us for a certain number of hard-wired telephones and long-distance charges. At that time, we also had a TV antenna mounted on the roof (remember antennas?). Then came cable and satellite TV and the antennas slowly disappeared. For a while, we used our landlines to "dial up" the Internet.

There was a time when we had one telephone bill. Each month, AT&T billed us for a certain number of hard-wired telephones and long-distance charges. At that time, we also had a TV antenna mounted on the roof (remember antennas?). Then came cable and satellite TV and the antennas slowly disappeared. For a while, we used our landlines to "dial up" the Internet.

Let me suggest that while the technologies of the Semantic Web are relatively easy, semantics are hard. Pragmatics -- a deeper cognitive understanding of the unique context, perspective, and intent of an individual interacting with the Internet -- represents an even greater challenge.

In my last Executive Update, "Enterprise Software Vendors: The State of the Union," 1 I examined the emerging competition for the high-margin business of supporting enterprise applications. In this Update, it's time to look toward the future of enterprise software.

In my last Executive Update, "Enterprise Software Vendors: The State of the Union," 1 I examined the emerging competition for the high-margin business of supporting enterprise applications. In this Update, it's time to look toward the future of enterprise software.

There's a certain element of frustration associated with staying focused on what matters at a management level, and it's been exacerbated of late as I've begun a quick swim through the books I've finally pulled off my shelf.

Part I of this two-part Executive Update series showed how cloud computing is maturing to become commoditized across multiple solution and service domains. 1 Here in Part II, we discuss how the CIO of tomorrow becomes a concierge for information services, considers the full breadth of cloud business use case