This month's Cutter Benchmark Review marks the third installment in our annual series on IT budgets and the yearly IT budgeting process. The budgeting process is one of critical importance to IT and business professionals in our subscriber base. It is the importance of this process that leads us to address it each year. Doing so also allows us to comment on year-over-year changes and monitor how the priorities of the organizations we survey change over time. As you know if you follow CBR, we also have a yearly issue on IT trends and technologies that we publish at the beginning of each year.

This month's Cutter Benchmark Review marks the third installment in our annual series on IT budgets and the yearly IT budgeting process. The budgeting process is one of critical importance to IT and business professionals in our subscriber base. It is the importance of this process that leads us to address it each year. Doing so also allows us to comment on year-over-year changes and monitor how the priorities of the organizations we survey change over time. As you know if you follow CBR, we also have a yearly issue on IT trends and technologies that we publish at the beginning of each year.

This month's Cutter Benchmark Review marks the third installment in our annual series on IT budgets and the yearly IT budgeting process. The budgeting process is one of critical importance to IT and business professionals in our subscriber base. It is the importance of this process that leads us to address it each year. Doing so also allows us to comment on year-over-year changes and monitor how the priorities of the organizations we survey change over time. As you know if you follow CBR, we also have a yearly issue on IT trends and technologies that we publish at the beginning of each year.

This month's Cutter Benchmark Review marks the third installment in our annual series on IT budgets and the yearly IT budgeting process. The budgeting process is one of critical importance to IT and business professionals in our subscriber base. It is the importance of this process that leads us to address it each year. Doing so also allows us to comment on year-over-year changes and monitor how the priorities of the organizations we survey change over time. As you know if you follow CBR, we also have a yearly issue on IT trends and technologies that we publish at the beginning of each year.

This Executive Report describes applied research that is intended to help readers understand and measure the impact of the deployment of technologies commonly referred to as Web 2.0. These technologies include wikis, blogs, podcasts, folksonomies, mashups, social networks, virtual worlds, and RSS filters.

The accompanying Executive Report describes applied research that is intended to help readers understand and measure the impact of the deployment of the technologies collectively known as Web 2.0. These include wikis, blogs, podcasts, folksonomies, mashups, social networks, virtual worlds, and RSS filters.

IT environments and platforms are becoming more capable of satisfying incrementally demanding operational requirements, and development methodologies are evolving accordingly. To achieve streamlined and agile processes, complex systems rely increasingly on flexible, unified models and integrated system views.

Innovation has emerged as a strategic necessity in an age of rapid and continual change as well as diminishing life spans for competitive advantage in new products. Innovation is a requirement, but fostering it within the corporation has long proven problematic. It demands changes in corporate culture and an emphasis on collaboration rather than on competition.

Innovation has emerged as a strategic necessity in an age of rapid and continual change as well as diminishing life spans for competitive advantage in new products. Innovation is a requirement, but fostering it within the corporation has long proven problematic. It demands changes in corporate culture and an emphasis on collaboration rather than on competition.

"Efficiency is not the winning card. The competitive game is won by businesses that know how to balance entrepreneurial and managerial modes of organizing in the innovation process."

-- Daniel Hjorth, Guest Editor

The trial-and-error approach to innovation is risky, ambiguous, and offers uncertain ROI. We need to take a more predictable approach to developing innovative solutions.

"Efficiency is not the winning card. The competitive game is won by businesses that know how to balance entrepreneurial and managerial modes of organizing in the innovation process."

-- Daniel Hjorth, Guest Editor

The trial-and-error approach to innovation is risky, ambiguous, and offers uncertain ROI. We need to take a more predictable approach to developing innovative solutions.

Many people misunderstand the word "art." You can detect this misunderstanding when you hear people imply that art is a subordinate discipline to science and technology. Images of undisciplined "artist types" and hard-to-understand works of modern art come to mind versus highly educated and disciplined scientists in their laboratories and all-business MBAs with the seeming precision of their quantitative analyses.

Many people misunderstand the word "art." You can detect this misunderstanding when you hear people imply that art is a subordinate discipline to science and technology. Images of undisciplined "artist types" and hard-to-understand works of modern art come to mind versus highly educated and disciplined scientists in their laboratories and all-business MBAs with the seeming precision of their quantitative analyses.

Of all the musical forms that exist, only jazz requires the creative skills to invent new musical themes in real time. Once such a theme is invented, a repeat performance is never exactly the same (although occasionally a great improvised solo may become so popular that it is copied, memorized, or notated for others to perform).

Of all the musical forms that exist, only jazz requires the creative skills to invent new musical themes in real time. Once such a theme is invented, a repeat performance is never exactly the same (although occasionally a great improvised solo may become so popular that it is copied, memorized, or notated for others to perform).

Is continuous innovation important to your organization?

Is continuous innovation important to your organization?

Agile work environments are highly sought after as a means of developing high-performance teams. In this article, I will elaborate on the factors that promote the creation of an agile work environment and a culture that supports innovation as a way of life. An agile work culture is expected to enable a high level of change sensitivity, coupled with team synergy. Such cultures seek to bring out the best in each individual, while at the same time drawing out the best performance when those individuals become a team.

Agile work environments are highly sought after as a means of developing high-performance teams. In this article, I will elaborate on the factors that promote the creation of an agile work environment and a culture that supports innovation as a way of life. An agile work culture is expected to enable a high level of change sensitivity, coupled with team synergy. Such cultures seek to bring out the best in each individual, while at the same time drawing out the best performance when those individuals become a team.

To many people, the process of creating great art or new innovations is a bit of a mystery. At the same time, the development of IT systems is viewed as drudgery. Yet from my experience in both the art and IT fields, artistic and innovative processes can and should be linked. How can we apply the creative skills that artists possess in abundance to develop innovation-friendly IT teams? I see three key patterns:

1. Mindset (or process)

To many people, the process of creating great art or new innovations is a bit of a mystery. At the same time, the development of IT systems is viewed as drudgery. Yet from my experience in both the art and IT fields, artistic and innovative processes can and should be linked. How can we apply the creative skills that artists possess in abundance to develop innovation-friendly IT teams? I see three key patterns:

1. Mindset (or process)

Innovation is imperative to a thriving organization. Yet it is well known that innovation is a trial-and-error process -- risky, ambiguous, and with uncertain ROI. These challenges can be mitigated by taking a more predictable approach to developing innovative solutions. One such approach is TRIZ, an engineering methodology for systematic problem solving that can be adapted to IT.

Innovation is imperative to a thriving organization. Yet it is well known that innovation is a trial-and-error process -- risky, ambiguous, and with uncertain ROI. These challenges can be mitigated by taking a more predictable approach to developing innovative solutions. One such approach is TRIZ, an engineering methodology for systematic problem solving that can be adapted to IT.

This Executive Report by Sebastian Konkol focuses on temporalities embedded in enterprise architecture and offers a means of organizing them inside technology management processes.

Although the necessity of refactoring is not being questioned by agile developers, its business justification has always been doubted by "outsiders." The accompanying Executive Report proposes a means of support for refactoring efforts and initiatives through enterprise architecture (EA), specifica