Examine today’s low-code/no-code (LC/NC) solu­tions — declarative development options with relatively low learning curves that provide a company’s workforce with the tools needed to easily create software to grow and transform the business.

In this interview, transformational coach Areej Khataybih offers a psychological perspective on women leaders and what contributes to their success and their challenges. She highlights the challenges that come from internal obstacles and beliefs of not being good enough and the battle of competing with male counterparts and, in the process, denying women’s full selves, the emotional and the logical.

This piece by Viola Maxwell-Thompson outlines a clear case for diversity, equity, and inclusion as a strategic priority. The author begins with a declarative proposition as she describes the next decade’s horizon and the expected growth in computer and mathematical occupations. She acknowledges the committed efforts of corporations that have recommitted themselves toward gender and ethnic diversity, yet demonstrates the lagging percentage of women, the lesser percentage of women of color, and, further still, the stagnant representation of Black and Brown professionals in senior roles.

Michael A. Tennant unapologetically shares hard truths about white supremacy in the US. He generously shares his personal experiences as a “striving and high-achieving” Black professional and the shared experiences among people of color more broadly. He holds nothing back as he counts down 10 common phrases that reinforce inequities, micro­aggressions, and racism.

If your enterprise architecture (EA) program is not engaged in digital transformation, I offer some advice that comes from successful cases where an EA program overcame the situation that had it sidelined and was brought in to an already running digital transformation.

Samin Saadat and Jim Brosseau take us into their workshops and their research. The authors provide meaningful context to describe the barriers to inclusion, such as the history of management and leadership, communication technologies, and the effects of addictive social media platforms. They offer practical steps for companies to include on their way to becoming a more transparent culture and also outline the costs companies will inevitably pay for failed attempts and a lack of inclusion.

This Cutter Business Technology Journal issue dives deep and looks at diversity, equity, and inclusion from different angles with the help of seven stellar voices who lend their expertise to educate, examine, enumerate, and offer solutions.

Nicole D. Price focuses on technical professionals and their underused skills, knowledge, and insights when tackling diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. She offers seven specific attributes of technical professionals and discusses how those attributes are well suited for this challenging work. Among them are logic and reason, reliance on evidence-based research for problem solving, the ability to imagine a better future, and healthy conflict.

Nicole D. Price focuses on technical professionals and their underused skills, knowledge, and insights when tackling diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. She offers seven specific attributes of technical professionals and discusses how those attributes are well suited for this challenging work. Among them are logic and reason, reliance on evidence-based research for problem solving, the ability to imagine a better future, and healthy conflict.

Ebonye Gussine Wilkins challenges us to do the work. Wilkins goes beyond the data that may have us enjoy a false sense of progress and unpacks what the numbers mean when parsed by marginalized groups and their lived experiences. She goes deeper still and offers historical perspectives that further explain racial divisions and spells out why data without insight tells a partial story. Her premise focuses on knowledge, education, insight, and wisdom as necessary, yet missing, elements to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

The architecture of architecture itself is multi-layered, just as architecture layers the things it represents in the real world in ways that we can understand and deal with. Some parts of architecture are easier to work with than others. This Advisor points to the need for a deeper understanding of the muddled middle of architecture.

3 November 2020

Welcome to The Cutter Edge. In each free issue, you'll find research, insight, and advice crucial to helping you navigate the spectrum of challenges technology change brings.

3 November 2020

Welcome to The Cutter Edge. In each free issue, you'll find research, insight, and advice crucial to helping you navigate the spectrum of challenges technology change brings.

A decade ago, social media was broadly perceived as driving innovation, enabling social inclusion, and — in some loosely defined sense — as a force for good. In 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become something of a pariah, at least in the eyes of those who propose or long for rational, balanced, and successful campaigns to manage and control the disease. What went wrong?

A decade ago, social media was broadly perceived as driving innovation, enabling social inclusion, and — in some loosely defined sense — as a force for good. In 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become something of a pariah, at least in the eyes of those who propose or long for rational, balanced, and successful campaigns to manage and control the disease. What went wrong?

Today, people across the globe are sharing the experience that the world is a very different place than it was just a few months ago. In this Advisor, Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant and Ivey Business School Professor Laurel Austin discusses some of what we know about risk taking and risk prevention behaviors. In particular she considers the question of why people take risks that experts advise against. She discussed this a few months ago in her Cutter Consortium webinar, “Risk in the Time of Coronavirus,” which is available on the Cutter website.

Value stream mapping is a team event. Identification of wasteful handoffs inspires team members to consciously improve communication and collaboration, which positively impacts the quality culture.

In this Advisor, we look at ADL’s COVID-19 Prediction Dashboard, which can enhance the ability of pharma companies to manage clinical trials effectively, during the pandemic and beyond.

The use of business capability maps and an associated application landscape with functionalities are a great tool to identify what may be rationalized, consolidated, modernized, replaced, and retired. Starting with a baseline application landscape and related infrastructure, you will end up with a target application landscape and associated roadmaps.

This Advisor provides a glimpse into the mHealth market and select innovations and benefits of mHealth adoption in clini­cal trials.

The days of EA managers who are not involved closely and directly in the digital transformation of their companies are numbered. Digital transformation has stolen their value proposition. Digital transformation is telling a powerful and compelling story to the leaders of the organization: change is needed now. If EA is truly the bridge between strategy and execution — if it is the key to enabling change — then digital transformation should leverage EA.

What’s happening when we’re reaching the right customers and meeting their strategic needs? That question is the opening gambit in an interesting kind of strategy review. In terms of format, the review is participatory — a workshop, in other words. In terms of approach, it’s outside-in: it starts not with internal capabilities but with the organization’s relationship to the outside world.

What’s happening when we’re reaching the right customers and meeting their strategic needs? That question is the opening gambit in an interesting kind of strategy review. In terms of format, the review is participatory — a workshop, in other words. In terms of approach, it’s outside-in: it starts not with internal capabilities but with the organization’s relationship to the outside world.

Enterprises have every right to expect their CIO to think creatively, not just about how they can effectively use technology themselves, but also how somebody else could use technology to destroy their business.

Enterprises have every right to expect their CIO to think creatively, not just about how they can effectively use technology themselves, but also how somebody else could use technology to destroy their business.