Leadership skills get tested when times are tough, when business is down, and when morale is low. How do you motivate your people after 20% of their colleagues have been laid off? How do you focus their attention on your vision for the future when they are skeptical as to whether there will even be a future, or if they will be a part of it?

This month's installment of Cutter Benchmark Review takes an in-depth look at one of the critical issues that typically emerges in our yearly series on IT budgets and the budgeting process: IT governance, which we define as the process of identifying responsibilities and implementing decision-making tools and structures for appropriate oversight of the management and use of IT resources. 

This month's installment of Cutter Benchmark Review focuses on the process of identifying responsibilities and implementing decision-making tools and structures for appropriate oversight of the management and use of IT resources: that is, IT governance and governance mechanisms.

This survey investigated the extent to which IT governance practices are applied in organizations as well as the degree to which those practices are effective. Forty-eight percent of the 89 responding organizations are headquartered in North America, 21% in Europe, 17% in Australia/Pacific, and 8% in Asia, with the remainder distributed in South America (3%), the Middle East (2%), and Africa (1%).

Breaches of personal information are a growing concern for the public and represent significant financial and legal risk to enterprises. This risk can be effectively managed by classifying business functions into those that need personal information and those that do not.

Breaches of personal information are a growing concern for the public and represent significant financial and legal risk to enterprises. This risk can be effectively managed by classifying business functions into those that need personal information and those that do not.

Businesses and governments collect a large amount of personal information, some of it quite sensitive, about their clients, employees, patients, and citizens. At the same time, a random scan of media reports on any given day will find multiple stories of personal data being lost by or stolen from corporations and governments.

Businesses and governments collect a large amount of personal information, some of it quite sensitive, about their clients, employees, patients, and citizens. At the same time, a random scan of media reports on any given day will find multiple stories of personal data being lost by or stolen from corporations and governments.

The Semantic Web offers us a compelling architectural framework upon which to build next-generation, Internet-ready applications within the enterprise. Now is the time to embrace the possibilities.

The Semantic Web offers us a compelling architectural framework upon which to build next-generation, Internet-ready applications within the enterprise. Now is the time to embrace the possibilities.

Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The industrial model that promoted manufacturing and engineering is slowly being phased out to usher in a new digital economy powered by developments in networking and information management. The old model placed controls on everything, including information flow, and permitted sharing of knowledge only through hierarchies of roles within the organization.

The industrial model that promoted manufacturing and engineering is slowly being phased out to usher in a new digital economy powered by developments in networking and information management. The old model placed controls on everything, including information flow, and permitted sharing of knowledge only through hierarchies of roles within the organization.

The industrial model that promoted manufacturing and engineering is slowly being phased out to usher in a new digital economy powered by developments in networking and information management. The old model placed controls on everything, including information flow, and permitted sharing of knowledge only through hierarchies of roles within the organization.

Data integration is a key issue for any enterprise. If data from multiple sources can't be mixed and matched, it gets hard to gather the right information at the right time. As a result, it becomes a major hurdle to make informed decisions within or across an enterprise and for employees to reach set goals. How can one overcome this obstruction of the lifeblood of a company (i.e., enterprise data)? One promising set of technologies is based on the Semantic Web.

Data integration is a key issue for any enterprise. If data from multiple sources can't be mixed and matched, it gets hard to gather the right information at the right time. As a result, it becomes a major hurdle to make informed decisions within or across an enterprise and for employees to reach set goals. How can one overcome this obstruction of the lifeblood of a company (i.e., enterprise data)? One promising set of technologies is based on the Semantic Web.

Data integration is a key issue for any enterprise. If data from multiple sources can't be mixed and matched, it gets hard to gather the right information at the right time. As a result, it becomes a major hurdle to make informed decisions within or across an enterprise and for employees to reach set goals. How can one overcome this obstruction of the lifeblood of a company (i.e., enterprise data)? One promising set of technologies is based on the Semantic Web.

The Internet and Web have enabled easy and nearly instantaneous dissemination and exchange of different types of information almost free of cost. Most information currently on the Web is document (page) based and presented in textual natural language, because it is primarily meant for use by humans. It's hard for computers to understand and make use of this information content, as it may lack structure, precise meaning, or context, or because a given word or phrase could refer to more than one thing.

The Internet and Web have enabled easy and nearly instantaneous dissemination and exchange of different types of information almost free of cost. Most information currently on the Web is document (page) based and presented in textual natural language, because it is primarily meant for use by humans. It's hard for computers to understand and make use of this information content, as it may lack structure, precise meaning, or context, or because a given word or phrase could refer to more than one thing.

As a mature technology, enterprise resource planning (ERP) has a strong history of increasing productivity through organizational integration and the application of the packaged software concept. ERP provides the majority of computer applications associated with day-to-day business operations for medium-sized and large firms, including accounting, human resources management, and the coordination of manufacturing operations.

As a mature technology, enterprise resource planning (ERP) has a strong history of increasing productivity through organizational integration and the application of the packaged software concept. ERP provides the majority of computer applications associated with day-to-day business operations for medium-sized and large firms, including accounting, human resources management, and the coordination of manufacturing operations.

In this Executive Report, I provide a strategy for the effective management of "fuzzy" projects. A fuzzy project is any project where the goal, the solution, or both are not clearly defined. Managing such high-risk projects is challenging.