How Parler May Have Hedged Its Architectural Bets
Balaji Prasad
Risk is not just about what we do; it is also inherent in what we don’t do. Standing still while the world moves can be as dangerous as moving out of step with real events. Architecture, too, like everything else, has risk, and it is probabilistic in nature.
Life and Data in a Time of Pandemic, Part IV
Barry Devlin
During the past year, the application of technology to well-bounded problems proved its strengths in the impressively rapid R&D that delivered multiple vaccines in a previously unheard of time frame. The challenging transition from R&D and production to distribution has, however, once again proven that project and change management issues are often more challenging than product development.
2021 Trends — Technology "Underdogs", Culture Change for Successful DevSecOps, more!
Cutter Consortium
This week's Cutter Edge explores the "underdog" technology trends for 2021 that are not as popular but just as important as those "celebrity" trends being touted by every research organization; why organizational culture is a vital part of effectively implementing DevSecOps; how Low-Code No-Code solutions can act as a catalyst for innovation, and more!
2021 Trends — Technology "Underdogs", Culture Change for Successful DevSecOps, more!
Cutter Consortium
This week's Cutter Edge explores the "underdog" technology trends for 2021 that are not as popular but just as important as those "celebrity" trends being touted by every research organization; why organizational culture is a vital part of effectively implementing DevSecOps; how Low-Code No-Code solutions can act as a catalyst for innovation, and more!
Aviation: The Future Is Reinvention
Mathieu Blondel, Francesco Marsella, Jan Heile, Akitake Fujita, Richard Eagar
It is clear to all that COVID-19 has dealt a devastating blow to the economy. The aviation industry, in particular, faces a new reality. While aviation, pre-crisis, was thriving from the waves of globalization and travel commoditization, it was already facing threats such as environmental pressures, unbalanced profit sharing along the value chain, and multiple constraints on operational and business agility. Thus, the recovery phase will be extremely challenging, and we believe future growth will involve nothing less than reinvention of the industry, something that is true of many industries post-pandemic.
Making the Network Organization Work
Jon Ward
I recently received an email from a colleague seeking advice by way of suggestions for his focus for 2021. In this Advisor, I share a glimpse into our correspondence as well as my thoughts on aligning value stream priorities.
Data & Digital Architecture — An Introduction
Gustav Toppenberg
In this issue of Cutter Business Technology Journal (CBTJ), we explore how enabling successful digital transformations through data and digital architectures can facilitate the enablement of the value streams and customer journeys companies build to stay in touch with changing client expectations and user experiences, all while building out the organization’s digital backbone.
Focus on Key Uncertainties to Let Good Architecture Emerge
Olivier Pilot, Michael Papadopoulos, Michael Eiden
It is a given that architects need to find ways to address the “absolutes” around a solution — the things that we know to be true for sure — in an effective, efficient, and elegant manner. Yet solving problems that truly matter generally involves a high degree of uncertainty. Unfortunately, the more ambitious the objectives, the more unfamiliar the context, and the bigger the unknowns, the greater the likelihood that those uncertainties — when unaddressed — will impede the emergence of a good architecture.
Realizing IoT Potential with 5G
Agron Lasku, Hariprasad Pichai, Rebecka Axelsson Wadman, Sean McDevitt
Although more devices are connected, the Internet of Things (IoT) is still far from living up to its full promise in many industries. But this is set to change — as 5G enables many of the technical requirements that have previously been lacking. Now is the time for companies to set their IoT strategies, and we believe investing in private networks, in particular, is important for companies to consider as 5G becomes a reality.
Create Market Insight with Textual Analytics
Joseph Byrum
No human could possibly read everything, but a machine can. The best you can do with old-fashioned methods is to hire experts to sample a subset of the relevant data and produce written market insight reports. While these studies can be extremely useful, the resulting analysis is constrained by the amount of data sampled. Many companies already use forms of automation to sort through the data with machines, but, in the end, humans still have to read the data and decide what it means.
Top Intriguing Business Agility & Software Engineering Excellence Articles for 2020
Karen Coburn
As has been our tradition for the last several years, we’ve compiled the five most intriguing articles published by the Business Agility & Software Engineering Excellence practice for today’s Advisor. How did we come up with this list? We chose the articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members. Your questions and comments not only make it possible to create lists like this, they help focus Cutter’s Senior Consultants’ research on the areas that are most important to organizations like yours. So please keep your feedback coming.
Top Intriguing Business Technology & Digital Transformation Strategies Articles for 2020
Karen Coburn
As has been our tradition for the last several years, we’ve compiled the five most intriguing articles published by Business Technology & Digital Transformation Strategies this year for today’s Advisor. How did we come up with this list? We chose the articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members. Your questions and comments not only make it possible to create lists like this, they help focus Cutter’s Senior Consultants’ research on the areas that are most important to organizations like yours. So please keep your feedback coming.
Top Intriguing Cutter Business Technology Journal Articles for 2020
Karen Coburn
This Advisor takes a look at the most intriguing articles of 2020 from the Cutter Business Technology Journal.
Top Intriguing Business & Enterprise Architecture Articles for 2020
Karen Coburn
As has been our tradition for the last several years, we’ve compiled the five most intriguing articles published by the Business & Enterprise Architecture practice for today’s Advisor. How did we come up with this list? We chose the articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members. Your questions and comments not only make it possible to create lists like this, they help focus Cutter’s Senior Consultants’ research on the areas that are most important to organizations like yours. So please keep your feedback coming.
Top Intriguing Data Analytics & Digital Technologies Articles for 2020
Karen Coburn
As has been our tradition for the last several years, we’ve compiled the five most intriguing articles published by the Data Analytics & Digital Technologies practice this year for today’s Advisor. How did we come up with this list? We chose the articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members and clients and those that created controversy among Cutter Senior Consultants and Fellows.
Configuring Your EA Practice for Agility
Svyatoslav Kotusev
The definition of “Agile architecture” is neither clear nor concrete. Instigated by hype, EA managers may rush to implement fashionable Agile approaches to the detriment of their organizations. Instead, they should strike a balance between up-front planning and agility — because no firms can plan their future in every detail, and not one single company can avoid planning altogether to stay perfectly Agile. As we explore in this Executive Update, EA managers should determine the “golden mean” between total planning and full agility that best meets the specific needs of their organizations.
Demystifying Digital Transformation: Start with the Digital Mindsets of Leaders
Sunny Ray, Joab Meyer, Karl Johnson
The authors share part of a research project that seeks to “demystify digital transformation” through findings from interviews with senior leaders at seven firms undergoing digital transformation in a variety of industries. One of their major initial findings is the degree to which senior leaders’ digital mindsets determine the success or failure of these initiatives. The authors highlight the importance of an enterprise-wide view, explaining why a project-by-project approach rarely produces true or lasting digital transformation.
Demystifying Digital Transformation: Start with the Digital Mindsets of Leaders
Sunny Ray, Joab Meyer, Karl Johnson
The authors share part of a research project that seeks to “demystify digital transformation” through findings from interviews with senior leaders at seven firms undergoing digital transformation in a variety of industries. One of their major initial findings is the degree to which senior leaders’ digital mindsets determine the success or failure of these initiatives. The authors highlight the importance of an enterprise-wide view, explaining why a project-by-project approach rarely produces true or lasting digital transformation.
Take It from NIST: Data & Digital Architecture Requires Application Security
Timothy Chiu
Timothy Chiu discusses how data and digital architectures require improved application security and how the new security framework from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) endorses this view. As more and more organizations move rapidly to the cloud, he argues, applications and their associated data are increasingly at risk. With supporting data from multiple sources, Chiu frames the risks through examples of data breaches across multiple industries and geographies. Fortunately, he says, NIST is on the case.
Building a Digital Ecosystem Platform from the Bottom Up
Thomas Gossler
Thomas Gossler writes about how a digital ecosystem platform demands a solid architecture for data and infrastructure on top of which a network of stakeholders can engage in valuable interactions with each other. The journey from a pipeline business model to an ecosystem platform is no small feat, and the author shares the approach he and his colleagues at Siemens Healthineers took and the lessons learned in their seven-year digital transformation
Building a Digital Ecosystem Platform from the Bottom Up
Thomas Gossler
Thomas Gossler writes about how a digital ecosystem platform demands a solid architecture for data and infrastructure on top of which a network of stakeholders can engage in valuable interactions with each other. The journey from a pipeline business model to an ecosystem platform is no small feat, and the author shares the approach he and his colleagues at Siemens Healthineers took and the lessons learned in their seven-year digital transformation
Designing Emerging, Adaptive Digital & Data Architectures
Olivier Pilot, Michael Papadopoulos, Michael Eiden
The authors take a two-part approach to discussing the design of adaptive digital and data architectures. First, they propose a way to design solutions that actively identify and address key uncertainties and concerns so that the right kinds of EA artifacts will emerge to answer key questions about user desirability, technical feasibility, and financial viability for the right people. Second, they share patterns and techniques that can be used to design and build digital and data architectures with a high level of flexibility and adaptability that can better support the changes in priorities that successful digital transformation efforts need to be able to steer.
The Missing Step in Digital Transformations: Defragmenting Your Value Streams
Eric Willeke
Any digital transformation requires significant changes across many dimensions, ranging from operating models to funding models to platform architecture, among others. In this article, Eric Willeke argues that keeping these changes aligned can be one of the hardest elements of digital transformation, especially when organizations try to sidestep the challenge of evolving their current technology organization to the required level of capability by creating a new, “digital” organization instead. Such attempts fail to address three problem areas that can trip up any digital transformation effort: fragmented value streams, poor decision governance, and inadequate management of the business capability portfolio.
The Missing Step in Digital Transformations: Defragmenting Your Value Streams
Eric Willeke
Any digital transformation requires significant changes across many dimensions, ranging from operating models to funding models to platform architecture, among others. In this article, Eric Willeke argues that keeping these changes aligned can be one of the hardest elements of digital transformation, especially when organizations try to sidestep the challenge of evolving their current technology organization to the required level of capability by creating a new, “digital” organization instead. Such attempts fail to address three problem areas that can trip up any digital transformation effort: fragmented value streams, poor decision governance, and inadequate management of the business capability portfolio.
Data & Digital Architecture — Opening Statement
Gustav Toppenberg
In this issue of Cutter Business Technology Journal, we explore how enabling successful digital transformations through data and digital architectures can facilitate the enablement of the value streams and customer journeys companies build to stay in touch with changing client expectations and user experiences, all while building out the organization’s digital backbone.
