Reading job postings for senior security executives, you will certainly be exposed to a monotonous, almost boilerplate recitation of the requisite skills, experiences, and education sought by the hiring company. Less often will the job spec require the applicant to document the information security value delivered to the current organization for which he or she currently works. Why is this?

Reading job postings for senior security executives, you will certainly be exposed to a monotonous, almost boilerplate recitation of the requisite skills, experiences, and education sought by the hiring company. Less often will the job spec require the applicant to document the information security value delivered to the current organization for which he or she currently works. Why is this?

Two years ago, in an Advisor titled "Update on Eclipse" (4 May 2005), I wrote about the advances in the Eclipse framework accelerated by the spin-off of Eclipse into the independent, open source, Eclipse Foundation.

In the course of my career, I have written, or managed the development of, hundreds of plans -- business plans, program plans, project plans, test plans, strategic plans, tactical plans, and more. I have developed plans that comprised two pages, 20 pages, and 200 pages.

In the rush of sourcing issues that threaten to pull you under like a riptide, it is worthwhile sometimes to step back and recalibrate your perspective to better understand the current sourcing environment as a necessary step in planning for the future. This might represent an ideal time for this. We're just weeks away from the end of summer -- and after Labor Day, the starting gun goes off for those remaining projects in the planning queue before the end of the fiscal year.

In the rush of sourcing issues that threaten to pull you under like a riptide, it is worthwhile sometimes to step back and recalibrate your perspective to better understand the current sourcing environment as a necessary step in planning for the future. This might represent an ideal time for this. We're just weeks away from the end of summer -- and after Labor Day, the starting gun goes off for those remaining projects in the planning queue before the end of the fiscal year.

"How big are blogs?" asked BusinessWeek back in 2005. "Try Johannes Gutenberg out for size. His printing press, unveiled in 1440, sparked a publishing boom and an information revolution" [1]. To compare blogs with Gutenberg's invention of moveable type is, perhaps, mildly hyperbolic. A blog is more of a literary style than a new form of information technology, and the World Wide Web itself bears much more conceptual resemblance to the printing press than do blogs.

"How big are blogs?" asked BusinessWeek back in 2005. "Try Johannes Gutenberg out for size. His printing press, unveiled in 1440, sparked a publishing boom and an information revolution" [1]. To compare blogs with Gutenberg's invention of moveable type is, perhaps, mildly hyperbolic. A blog is more of a literary style than a new form of information technology, and the World Wide Web itself bears much more conceptual resemblance to the printing press than do blogs.

"How big are blogs?" asked BusinessWeek back in 2005. "Try Johannes Gutenberg out for size. His printing press, unveiled in 1440, sparked a publishing boom and an information revolution" [1]. To compare blogs with Gutenberg's invention of moveable type is, perhaps, mildly hyperbolic. A blog is more of a literary style than a new form of information technology, and the World Wide Web itself bears much more conceptual resemblance to the printing press than do blogs.

While master data management (MDM) will bring some order to the chaos in otherwise diverse source systems, it has an interesting role to play in new-generation business intelligence (BI) architectures (dubbed by some as BI 2.0). One of the key features desired by the entire BI user community and also the non-BI community (who hopes to benefit from the analytics technologies and capabilities of BI) is the realization of search-enabled BI.

The perils of traditional project management have forced those involved to look at better ways of managing dynamic and complex projects. In this context, agile project leadership has emerged as an optimistic move toward effectively managing such projects. As agile project leadership evolves, a number of questions are being raised and answers sought in order to both strengthen the framework behind it and explore ways to develop agile project leaders.

Competitive intelligence is nothing new. Whether it's the owner of the shop down the street checking out his competitor's prices, a secret shopper analyzing a company's customer service, or a Fortune 500 company's high-level strategic analysis of the competition, businesses always want to know as much as possible about their competition.

Competitive intelligence is nothing new. Whether it's the owner of the shop down the street checking out his competitor's prices, a secret shopper analyzing a company's customer service, or a Fortune 500 company's high-level strategic analysis of the competition, businesses always want to know as much as possible about their competition.

Competitive intelligence is nothing new. Whether it's the owner of the shop down the street checking out his competitor's prices, a secret shopper analyzing a company's customer service, or a Fortune 500 company's high-level strategic analysis of the competition, businesses always want to know as much as possible about their competition.

There are several approaches to setting key performance indicator (KPI) incentives in outsourcing arrangements. The term "incentive" 1 is used in this Executive Update to reflect the financial risks and rewards that are allocated to the service provider by the client regarding KPIs.

There are several approaches to setting key performance indicator (KPI) incentives in outsourcing arrangements. The term "incentive" 1 is used in this Executive Update to reflect the financial risks and rewards that are allocated to the service provider by the client regarding KPIs.

Although Cutter's Business Technology Trends & Impacts practice seeks to offer insight into upcoming technology trends, I'm sorry to admit that this Executive Update deals with a technological vision that has already grown embarrassingly old.

Although Cutter's Business Technology Trends & Impacts practice seeks to offer insight into upcoming technology trends, I'm sorry to admit that this Executive Update deals with a technological vision that has already grown embarrassingly old.

Over the past few years, it seems more disasters and emergencies have impacted businesses around the world than in any other time in history. Natural disasters, terrorist activities, and criminal actions are affecting organizations of all sizes. Organizations should know that they must be prepared to address a wide range of emergencies and disasters to keep their business going.

Back in January, I discussed Hewlett-Packard's (HP's) entry into the data warehousing and BI market with its new Neoview offering that combines data warehouse software, hardware, and services (see "Hewlett-Packard's Data Warehousing Gamble," 23 January 2007).

People never notice the most important things in an advanced society until those things stop working or they disappear. This is true of electricity or water or other forms of infrastructure, like roads and bridges. We count on these things for transportation and recreation and commerce, but it is only when they're gone that we begin to understand their value.

People never notice the most important things in an advanced society until those things stop working or they disappear. This is true of electricity or water or other forms of infrastructure, like roads and bridges. We count on these things for transportation and recreation and commerce, but it is only when they're gone that we begin to understand their value.

A recent Cutter Consortium survey indicates that project duration was 35% shorter on successful Agile projects (19 weeks) than on challenged Agile projects (29 weeks) (see Question 1). Does this finding play into the hands of the "Agile doesn't scale to large projects" crowd?

The increasing attention being garnered by the Web 2.0 phenomenon is reminiscent of the buzz and excitement of the dot-com days. In December 1999, Time Magazine named dot-com pioneer Jeff Bezos the Person of the Year. In December 2006, the magazine put "you" on the cover. The picture was the console of the YouTube player with a mirror instead of the screen.

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series of Advisors (see "Winning Project Office Techniques, Part 1," 2 May 2007, and "Winning Project Office Techniques, Part 2," 6 June 2007), I discussed a couple of advanced project office techniques that not everyone considers bu