IT can be the facilitator of efficiency and sustainability within a corporation. By driving sustainable practices from the bottom up, IT can help build a better, greener company around itself. There are some simple policy modifications that can be taken immediately to reduce the environmental impact of IT's use in the company, and then there are some cultural changes that take longer to enact.

The majority of organizations plan to increase spending on business performance management in 2008. This finding comes from a Cutter Consortium survey conducted in January 2008 of 101 end-user organizations based worldwide.

The majority of organizations plan to increase spending on business performance management in 2008. This finding comes from a Cutter Consortium survey conducted in January 2008 of 101 end-user organizations based worldwide.

Entrenched political infrastructures will not fall in line easily around the idea of tackling the governance issue. To the contrary, business units and IT spend most of their time working around the concept of governance because no one believes that it can change. This fact is clearly visible in most organizations.

I field a lot of calls about how to go global. Recognizing that it's 2008 and Thomas L. Friedman's book The World Is Flat has been out for years, many of us are still struggling with how to extend our computing and communications infrastructures and architectures around the world, away from the proverbial "home office."

I field a lot of calls about how to go global. Recognizing that it's 2008 and Thomas L. Friedman's book The World Is Flat has been out for years, many of us are still struggling with how to extend our computing and communications infrastructures and architectures around the world, away from the proverbial "home office."

I field a lot of calls about how to go global. Recognizing that it's 2008 and Thomas L. Friedman's book The World Is Flat has been out for years, many of us are still struggling with how to extend our computing and communications infrastructures and architectures around the world, away from the proverbial "home office."

This Executive Update is the second in a two-part series based on the results of a recent Cutter survey on the use of enterprise application mashups in organizations. 1 In Part I (Vol. 11, No. 7), we evaluated the survey responses to determine the extent of mashup use in organizations. In general, while the survey shows that interest in mashups is high, few indicate that mashups are being implemented in response to business needs.

In January 2008, Cutter Consortium conducted a survey of 101 end-user organizations regarding their use of business performance management practices. The goal was to determine the degree to which companies are implementing business performance management techniques and technologies.

For those who have worked on numerous projects, it doesn't take long to tell when a project is being managed well or poorly. But what in particular makes one project manager better than another? What is it about those project managers that make a project work as smoothly as possible, but with other project managers, everything is a struggle? There's not one specific quality that makes a great project manager but a collection of qualities that needs to be balanced to meet the needs of each project.

I wrote a book proposal in 2003 that boldly announced that the Web was on the verge of a fundamental change from being a repository of documents to a source of knowledge. The Semantic Web, long discussed and theorized about, was on the verge of becoming mainstream, I wrote. The book found no publisher, and I graciously avoided the fate of so many prognosticators who find their predictions proved false (or premature) by the slow, plodding steps of history.

I wrote a book proposal in 2003 that boldly announced that the Web was on the verge of a fundamental change from being a repository of documents to a source of knowledge. The Semantic Web, long discussed and theorized about, was on the verge of becoming mainstream, I wrote. The book found no publisher, and I graciously avoided the fate of so many prognosticators who find their predictions proved false (or premature) by the slow, plodding steps of history.

The Nokia Test is a quick assessment of practices to determine whether your Scrum implementation is up to snuff, based on how it is done at Nokia. Let's take it apart to see whether there are any user-serviceable parts inside. The first few elements identify whether or not you are really iterative.

As I wrote recently (see "The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Risk Managers -- Again," 31 January 2008), the management of Swiss bank UBS admitted in January that, even after writing off US $13.4 billion from the bank's books in the fourth quarter in response to its holdings in subprime mortgages, "We cannot, at this ti

As I wrote recently (see "The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Risk Managers -- Again," 31 January 2008), the management of Swiss bank UBS admitted in January that, even after writing off US $13.4 billion from the bank's books in the fourth quarter in response to its holdings in subprime mortgages, "We cannot, at this ti

I was talking to someone recently who had used a requirements approach about which I was skeptical.

"How many times have you worked on a project that used this approach?" I asked.

"I'd guess 25 or 26," he replied.

"Did it work?" I asked.

"It didn't," he replied.

I was talking to someone recently who had used a requirements approach about which I was skeptical.

"How many times have you worked on a project that used this approach?" I asked.

"I'd guess 25 or 26," he replied.

"Did it work?" I asked.

"It didn't," he replied.

In this Advisor, Cutter Consortium Fellow Steve Andriole offers his expert advice as to the type of business technology education today's undergraduates should be receiving. These students will be your future IT employees. What do you think these students should be learning from their coursework?

In this Advisor, Cutter Consortium Fellow Steve Andriole offers his expert advice as to the type of business technology education today's undergraduates should be receiving. These students will be your future IT employees. What do you think these students should be learning from their coursework?

In my last Advisor (see "Principles of Planning: Managing Stakeholder Expectations," 12 March 2008), I described the importance of actively managing stakeholder expectations.

The things you have to be careful about in architecture are those everybody knows but are not true. I was working recently with a friend trying to sketch out a migration plan for an organization whose IT systems were not too great.

Several weeks ago, I discussed the need for tools that can mine social media sites like MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and others (see "Mining Internet Social Media: Tomorrow's Tools Needed Today," 18 March 2008).

Several weeks ago, I discussed the need for tools that can mine social media sites like MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and others (see "Mining Internet Social Media: Tomorrow's Tools Needed Today," 18 March 2008).

The time between an action and the feedback on that action is critical.

-- Scott Ambler, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium

The title of this Advisor is very specific: "chartering agile projects," not "developing an agile charter." In the latter, "charter" is a noun; in the former, a verb (taking some liberties with the English language).