It has become popular to enter the agile world using a shortcut: you send a few of your more-promising young managers to a two-day course where they learn about how to manage an agile team and how to plan an agile iteration.

According to the results of a recent Cutter survey on IT trends for 2008 (see Cutter Benchmark Review , Vol. 8, No. 1), IS security continues to be a challenge for companies. We are seeing a trend develop in the way companies implement intrusion detection.

According to the results of a recent Cutter survey on IT trends for 2008 (see Cutter Benchmark Review , Vol. 8, No. 1), IS security continues to be a challenge for companies. We are seeing a trend develop in the way companies implement intrusion detection.

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.

-- Albert Einstein

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.

-- Albert Einstein

I've been working with many companies lately whose IT systems are dominated by enterprise resource planning (ERP). This is not surprising, since an ERP system is an essential part of most IT portfolios today. In many organizations, the ERP system contributes as much as 70% of the total IT capability.

Leveraging ROI as a key service-level agreement (SLA) target in IT services contracts for some is an innovative use of a not-so-very-innovative financial technique. Innovations are often startling, and some service providers are likely to find it so. Consider it anyway.

Leveraging ROI as a key service-level agreement (SLA) target in IT services contracts for some is an innovative use of a not-so-very-innovative financial technique. Innovations are often startling, and some service providers are likely to find it so. Consider it anyway.

In previous Cutter articles and reports, I have often referred to the business manager's challenge of managing stakeholder expectations. Who are stakeholders? They are shareholders, board directors, employees, customers, vendors, community agencies, investment analysts, and government agencies -- in short, anyone who has a stake in the performance of the company.

For organizations struggling with their master data management (MDM) strategies, underway or planned, the solution for success may not lie in better technical justifications or in more concrete ROI discussions, but in a better customer service and IT marketing strategy.

To ban or not to ban social networks at workplaces is an ongoing dilemma facing many CIOs, IT directors, and senior executives in numerous organizations. Despite the growing popularity and potential benefits that can be gained by embracing social networks for business applications, more companies are blocking access to social-networking sites.

The majority of organizations that have implemented or are planning to implement business performance management solutions rely on a data warehouse to support the data integration requirements of their performance management initiatives. This finding comes from a Cutter Consortium survey conducted in January 2008 of 101 end-user organizations based worldwide.

As more organizations face transitions to agile methods and those transitions involve larger segments of those organizations, the need for transition or transformation strategies increases.

I finally broke down last weekend and brought a new laptop, powered by Microsoft's Vista operating system. I had reached the end of the line with my old Sony laptop. Some of you are familiar with my old machine, which played a part in a series of Trends Advisors about working around problems.

I finally broke down last weekend and brought a new laptop, powered by Microsoft's Vista operating system. I had reached the end of the line with my old Sony laptop. Some of you are familiar with my old machine, which played a part in a series of Trends Advisors about working around problems.

Diversity management is a double mistake. Instead, the art to master is difference and leadership. Difference leadership is based in an ethic that recognizes the other as other and accepts (if not welcomes/embraces) her or his otherness as fully valid and equal. Apart from being based in the ethics of difference, it is also a leadership guided by a politics of curiosity before the capability of people.

I recall a conference presentation titled "Software engineering? An Oxymoron?" that I attended about five years ago. The speaker was pushing the idea that the software development practice had to borrow concepts from the engineering domain, where the formal approach in design and build was a common practice consolidated over 2,000 years.

Arguing that one piece of the process guidance in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is more important than another is like arguing the same about one piece in a jigsaw puzzle. The complementary nature of ITIL and jigsaw puzzles tells us that each piece contributes equally to the whole and each part must be treated with equal care. So, in the name of equality, we'll dispense with "important" and go with the more awkward "symbolically transformational" to argue the following.

In the October 2007 Cutter IT Journal, I contributed an article to the special issue on "Fostering Innovation: What Role Does Agile Software Development Play?" That article, titled "Agile and UCD: Can This Marriage Be Saved?," presented a case study of a company that went from waterfall to agile, with the loss of usability testing as an unexpected outcome. In its place, the product manager stood in for the customer/user.

Artificial intelligence (my definition): AI is technology based on the study of human cognition and problem-solving capabilities. Examples of such human cognitive skills include speech recognition, decision making, visual recognition, problem solving, deductive and inductive reasoning, and signal processing.

Despite several alternatives, most end-user organizations currently choose to develop their business performance management applications themselves. This trend is subject to change, however, because many organizations that are planning to implement performance management applications are still undecided as to how they will do so. Market conditions are changing as well.

Despite several alternatives, most end-user organizations currently choose to develop their business performance management applications themselves. This trend is subject to change, however, because many organizations that are planning to implement performance management applications are still undecided as to how they will do so. Market conditions are changing as well.

Designing the right IT organization can make the difference between IT success and failure. Too often, the need to build traditional hierarchies to preserve power structures, placate business executives, or just keep the peace often prevents IT executives from designing optimal IT organizations.

Nearly everything we do in technology depends on knowledge. But it is not just any kind of knowledge. It is a fast-moving and intense kind of knowledge. In fact, it is the challenge of mastering this fast-moving knowledge that draws young people, like moths to a flame, into the various disciplines that feed and care for computers.

Through the exploration of the latest version of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL V3), organizations that covet alignment between business units and the IT organization will discover that ITIL V3 has a lot to say about this elusive objective -- so much, in fact, that companies serious in their intentions will discover that with adoption of the framework, they'll get alignment at no extra charge. You see, in ITIL, alignment is not really an objective but rather the organic, unmanipulated outgrowth of successful framework adoption.