Are organizations fully capable of understanding the possible risks to value creation from technology investment in the absence of an economic value analysis of that technology? Wal-Mart's tale of RFID tag deployment is illuminating.

At its best, being a CIO is a high-stress endeavor, and one of the most demanding tasks of all is that of developing proprietary inhouse solutions for your business. Why is this? As a COO at GE once told me, "Here's what I know about software: it always takes longer than promised; it always costs more than promised; and it never delivers all that's promised."

In the application development culture, IT professionals like to interpret enterprise architecture (EA) as the blueprint for all application systems. As a result, EA can seem more complicated than it should be; and, as we all have learned, complexity increases exponentially with the scope of requirements.

This Executive Update is adapted from Chapter 15 of our book Global RFID: The Value of the EPCglobal Network for Supply Chain Management (Springer-Verlag, 2007).

This Executive Update is adapted from Chapter 15 of our book Global RFID: The Value of the EPCglobal Network for Supply Chain Management (Springer-Verlag, 2007).

Contrary to the prevailing politically correct view, I remain convinced that leadership is more innate than acquired. However, the qualities of leadership are often absurdly overvalued or demonized.

Organizations are moving quickly to implement ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) because they believe it will improve performance, particularly in the service delivery area.

Organizations are moving quickly to implement ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) because they believe it will improve performance, particularly in the service delivery area.

This Executive Update is the fifth in a series that examines information and communications technology (ICT) outsourcing and its various configuration options. The series is based on a recent Cutter Consortium survey of 73 organizations in 25 countries across the globe. 1

This Executive Update is the fifth in a series that examines information and communications technology (ICT) outsourcing and its various configuration options. The series is based on a recent Cutter Consortium survey of 73 organizations in 25 countries across the globe. 1

The creative response is an innate human characteristic, but only a small minority of people are what we may call "compulsive creatives" (i.e., habitually psychologically hooked on original thinking for its own sake).

The creative response is an innate human characteristic, but only a small minority of people are what we may call "compulsive creatives" (i.e., habitually psychologically hooked on original thinking for its own sake).

The creative response is an innate human characteristic, but only a small minority of people are what we may call "compulsive creatives" (i.e., habitually psychologically hooked on original thinking for its own sake).

A new world order has been evolving since around 1990 or so, and we in the IT industry have responded to it with such efforts, fads, buzzwords, and new technologies as reengineering, the Internet, outsourcing, optimization, virtualization, and many others. However, we really have not seen the changes enabled by these new technologies and evolving global business needs holistically -- as a call for new ways of doing business -- and we certainly have not rallied ourselves as a profession to rethink the way we extract value from technology in our businesses.

A new world order has been evolving since around 1990 or so, and we in the IT industry have responded to it with such efforts, fads, buzzwords, and new technologies as reengineering, the Internet, outsourcing, optimization, virtualization, and many others. However, we really have not seen the changes enabled by these new technologies and evolving global business needs holistically -- as a call for new ways of doing business -- and we certainly have not rallied ourselves as a profession to rethink the way we extract value from technology in our businesses.

If you follow astrology, you know that Gemini is the sign of the twins. And it's often said that Gemini have two sides: their good side and the other side -- the evil twin, which emerges at unexpected times, with undesirable results. I don't know if this is generally true about Gemini, but it is often true about other complex things.

We continue to confront a basic problem in IT management: business managers aren't much interested in participating in prioritization, alignment, and planning exercises for IT. This is particularly true for business-unit managers who are components of a multi-line-of-business corporation. While the corporate CFO, and possibly the CEO, do worry about IT costs, individual business unit managers who consume IT services simply aren't interested.

No doubt, like many other practitioners, you have indoctrinated yourself with the mantra that transformation and innovation are the two true key cornerstones of your success. You may have recognized that it is not enough for your company simply to be efficient in order to stay ahead of your competitors.

No doubt, like many other practitioners, you have indoctrinated yourself with the mantra that transformation and innovation are the two true key cornerstones of your success. You may have recognized that it is not enough for your company simply to be efficient in order to stay ahead of your competitors.

Imagine sitting in the park on a nice summer day, and a flock of birds sweeps the sky. One moment they are circling, another they dart to the left or drop to the ground. Each move is so beautiful that it appears choreographed. Furthermore, the movements of the flock seem smoother than those of any one bird in the flock. Yet, the flock has no high-level controller or even a lead bird.

Oracle's recent acquisition of analytic database and enterprise performance management (EPM) vendor Hyperion Software continues a trend in which the large, enterprise software vendors are aggressively moving to increase their presence in the market for BI tools and performance management applications.

Oracle's recent acquisition of analytic database and enterprise performance management (EPM) vendor Hyperion Software continues a trend in which the large, enterprise software vendors are aggressively moving to increase their presence in the market for BI tools and performance management applications.

A friend of mine is a computer science professor. Periodically, he assigns his first-year students the job of writing a sort routine. If they try to write an original sort routine, he gives them a lower grade.

A friend of mine is a computer science professor. Periodically, he assigns his first-year students the job of writing a sort routine. If they try to write an original sort routine, he gives them a lower grade.

A friend of mine is a computer science professor. Periodically, he assigns his first-year students the job of writing a sort routine. If they try to write an original sort routine, he gives them a lower grade.