In my last Advisor, "Collaborative Leadership Basics, Part 6: Why Team Member Motivation Is a Better Predictor of Team Effectiveness Than Are Technical Skills," 14 December 2006), I told you why motivation is more important than technical skill-set in predicting team effectiveness, and thus performance.

As any parent with small children will tell you, getting them to eat their vegetables can be a trying experience. If only their determination not to eat a single pea, carrot, or green bean, regardless of the coaxing, bribery, or threats involved, could be channeled in more positive directions.

As any parent with small children will tell you, getting them to eat their vegetables can be a trying experience. If only their determination not to eat a single pea, carrot, or green bean, regardless of the coaxing, bribery, or threats involved, could be channeled in more positive directions.

As any parent with small children will tell you, getting them to eat their vegetables can be a trying experience. If only their determination not to eat a single pea, carrot, or green bean, regardless of the coaxing, bribery, or threats involved, could be channeled in more positive directions.

I don't think failure is inevitable in outsourcing agile projects. An outsourcing strategy that fits the nature of strategic stars such as agile projects could have prevented the disaster. However, before I start to lay out an appropriate outsourcing strategy for agile projects, here is one major piece of advice: If you have the choice, don't do it!

I don't think failure is inevitable in outsourcing agile projects. An outsourcing strategy that fits the nature of strategic stars such as agile projects could have prevented the disaster. However, before I start to lay out an appropriate outsourcing strategy for agile projects, here is one major piece of advice: If you have the choice, don't do it!

In my previous Advisors in this series (see the sidebar), I have submitted my conservative views on getting started with SOA and I have explored the challenges of SOA initiative planning. While addressing these challenges, like many other practitioners, I observed the concept of enterprise service bus (ESB) pop up many times for many of my SOA initiative engagements.

In previous issues in this series, I suggested that there are three aspects to the external technological environment that IT should track and consider. These include the following:

Competitive factors -- plans and moves of traditional and nontraditional business competitors

In response to a recent Advisor on important BI and data warehousing trends for 2007 ("BI Trends and Developments to Watch for in 2007," 2 January 2007), one reader inquired as to my thoughts on grid computing architectures, in general, as well as the use of grids for data warehousing and BI.

Much has been made over the last few days about Hewlett-Packard's (HP's) recent announcement that it is entering the market for data warehousing and BI software and services, and how it plans to challenge market leaders Oracle, IBM, Teradata, SAS, Microsoft, and so on.

Much has been made over the last few days about Hewlett-Packard's (HP's) recent announcement that it is entering the market for data warehousing and BI software and services, and how it plans to challenge market leaders Oracle, IBM, Teradata, SAS, Microsoft, and so on.

Over the years, I've found a tendency in large organizations, especially government ones, to equate oversight with control. In fact, as far as I can tell, there is no positive correlation between the amount of oversight and the success of large projects.

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. The Kubler-Ross cycle is a classic of psychology and is largely seen as relating to serious loss, death, or grief.

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. The Kubler-Ross cycle is a classic of psychology and is largely seen as relating to serious loss, death, or grief.

In my last Advisor ("Smart Sourcing: Getting Your People Ready," 20 December 2006), we discussed the "people" component of getting your organization ready for smart sourcing. Without a doubt, people or the workforce play a significant role in the success of smart sourcing.

In my last Advisor ("Smart Sourcing: Getting Your People Ready," 20 December 2006), we discussed the "people" component of getting your organization ready for smart sourcing. Without a doubt, people or the workforce play a significant role in the success of smart sourcing.

Last month, I discussed why Business Rules Management Systems (BRMSs) are increasingly becoming an important part of organizations' service-oriented architecture (SOA) initiatives (see "The Role of Business Rules Management Systems in Service-Oriented Architectures," 27 December 2006).

collaboration = innovation

collaboration = innovation

The easiest thing of all is to deceive one's self; for what a man wishes he generally believes to be true.

-- Demosthenes (384 BC - 322 BC)

I was recently rereading one of my earliest e-mail Advisors from Cutter Consortium's Agile Project Management Practice (it was actually e-Project management then). The Advisor was about why this different way of managing projects was so important. After reading it, I decided it was time to revisit and update that issue.

The first big data warehousing industry development of the new year is NCR Corporation's announcement that it is splitting into two separate companies.

Demonstrating real benefits from the organization's investment in information technology is a task faced by the majority of IT departments. In response to this challenge, many IT departments have chosen to implement a best practices service model to deliver real outcomes to the organization.

This is the final segment of the four-part Executive Update series on running your EA practice like a business.