Customer collaboration is a cornerstone of agile development, but it is also one of the more difficult aspects of implementing agile. Of course, lack of customer involvement isn't unique to agile development -- software developers have had problems in this area ever since software entered organizational life.

Customer collaboration is a cornerstone of agile development, but it is also one of the more difficult aspects of implementing agile. Of course, lack of customer involvement isn't unique to agile development -- software developers have had problems in this area ever since software entered organizational life.

I've noted an overwhelming trend in the last year or so related to managers' unwillingness to ask questions of their senior management about risk. The trend seems to be rooted in plain old-fashioned fear.

One of the most important things that an IT executive must remember is where the money that pays for new equipment, IT employee salaries, software licenses, and so on, comes from. When I pose this question to senior managers, the reply I most often get has to do with budgets or overhead. While technically correct, these answers don't get to the heart of the question.

One of the most important things that an IT executive must remember is where the money that pays for new equipment, IT employee salaries, software licenses, and so on, comes from. When I pose this question to senior managers, the reply I most often get has to do with budgets or overhead. While technically correct, these answers don't get to the heart of the question.

Any IT manager worth his or her salt can give you at least a dozen reasons why waterfall methods are passé. Yet the semicontractual specification that is the usual result of requirements engineering is clearly a waterfall artifact. What flows over the waterfall is the spec.

Any IT manager worth his or her salt can give you at least a dozen reasons why waterfall methods are passé. Yet the semicontractual specification that is the usual result of requirements engineering is clearly a waterfall artifact. What flows over the waterfall is the spec.

A client asks about methods to increase the trust between IT and business managers and staff. It seems the relationship is currently broken: business managers don't trust IT, and the feeling is mutual.

I just attended the Architecture and Design World 2008 conference in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was an exciting collection of 300-plus architects and designers with an array of about 75 talks that provided a good representation of what's of current interest to software architects and designers.

A common business adage these days is that "if you don't move forward, you will fall behind." This is reasonable, in a sense. There is a good chance that in a competitive environment, maintaining the status quo internally will give others an opportunity to make advances and leave you in the dust. In effect, you indeed fall backward.

I have a problem with this, in that it implies that our approach should be to aggressively stay ahead of the competition in order to survive.

A common business adage these days is that "if you don't move forward, you will fall behind." This is reasonable, in a sense. There is a good chance that in a competitive environment, maintaining the status quo internally will give others an opportunity to make advances and leave you in the dust. In effect, you indeed fall backward.

I have a problem with this, in that it implies that our approach should be to aggressively stay ahead of the competition in order to survive.

Microsoft has announced it is acquiring data warehousing appliance specialist DATAllegro, Inc. Microsoft plans to convert DATAllegro's massively parallel processing (MPP) data warehousing appliances to work with the Microsoft SQL Server database.

Microsoft has announced it is acquiring data warehousing appliance specialist DATAllegro, Inc. Microsoft plans to convert DATAllegro's massively parallel processing (MPP) data warehousing appliances to work with the Microsoft SQL Server database.

In far too many organizations, bureaucracy is an inherent impediment to success.

"How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" -- commonly attributed to novelist E.M. Forster

"How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" -- commonly attributed to novelist E.M. Forster

This is a continuation of a series of recent Advisors on quality (see "Intrinsic Quality?" 3 July 2008 and "Investigating Agile: Inside and Out," 19 June 2008).

In our just-published Cutter Benchmark Review article (see "Linking IT Budgeting, Governance, and Value," Vol., 8, No. 7), we report that only 27% of managers of large companies believe their IT is superior to that of their competition. (By "large," we mean companies with more than US $50 million annual spend.) For all companies, regardless of size, only 39% of managers believe that their company's IT is superior.

Wow.

I once wrote a project plan for a global team with a business challenge of developing a model for the formation and management of worldwide strategic alliances. The seven team members were physically situated in different cities and time zones; we were part of an international executive education program to study key management issues of global enterprise.

Increasingly, we're hearing about cloud computing, with a host of companies -- including Amazon, Google, Hewlett-Packard (HP), IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP AG, and Sun -- all promoting it to varying degrees.

Advanced data visualization tools have been around for some time. They first gained a following among scientists and engineers, who used them to build models for fluid-flow analysis, aerodynamic simulation, and other complex applications involving large data sets with many cause-and-effect variables.

On the face of it, we all can agree that how a company does its work matters a great deal. The continual interest in reorganization, the business process reengineering explosion of the 1980s, and the now nearly universal acceptance of the business process and organizational structure as fundamental to good performance give proof to this truth.

To help IT executives identify "hidden" areas for cost reduction, Cutter Consortium Fellow Bob Benson's Cost Reduction Roadmap for IT applies time-tested portfolio management principles. This simple roadmap has proven to be an effective framework for IT cost reduction, addressing both project budgets and ongoing IT expense budgets.

Join Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Bob Benson in an interactive webinar in which he reveals two often-overlooked areas business and IT exec can carefully explore to uncover the less-obvious opportunities for IT cost reduction: the project's capital and expense budget, and the ongoing IT expense budget.

NOTE: Viewing the Webinar requires the use of Adobe Flash Player 8 or higher (Adobe Flash Player 9 or higher for Linux and Solaris) (download the player from the Adobe Web site).