The other morning, over coffee, I was talking with several folks about the predicament that the big US automotive manufacturers General Motors and Ford now find themselves in. Simply put, GM and Ford are in trouble because sales of their SUVs, pickups, and other large vehicles have declined considerably. Some defined it as a forecasting problem. Others said it was faulty data analysis, and asked me why Ford and GM's BI folks failed to predict the shift in consumer sentiment to smaller, more gas economical cars.

In my last couple of Advisors (see "Working Around the Delete Key, Part 1," 24 August 2006 and "Working Around the Delete Key, Part 2: What Are Our Users Really Doing?," 7 September 2006), I've commented on how inventive human beings become when working around perceived problems with their systems.

In my last couple of Advisors (see "Working Around the Delete Key, Part 1," 24 August 2006 and "Working Around the Delete Key, Part 2: What Are Our Users Really Doing?," 7 September 2006), I've commented on how inventive human beings become when working around perceived problems with their systems.

"We would like to do agile but we cannot go because we need documentation for the FDA/SOX/..." is one of the statements I frequently hear after talks, panels, or in client conversations. This is a popular misconception about agile, which I'd like to clarify in this Advisor.

The concept of uncertainty is another way of defining project risk (including IT), insofar as risk is defined as those uncertain factors that can measurably and negatively impact project performance and undermine the outcomes sought. Historically, uncertainty has been identified and analyzed by its source: technical, people, financial, and so on. A completely alternative approach exists in thinking about uncertainty as the central characteristic of risk, an approach involving the foreseeability of risks.

The concept of uncertainty is another way of defining project risk (including IT), insofar as risk is defined as those uncertain factors that can measurably and negatively impact project performance and undermine the outcomes sought. Historically, uncertainty has been identified and analyzed by its source: technical, people, financial, and so on. A completely alternative approach exists in thinking about uncertainty as the central characteristic of risk, an approach involving the foreseeability of risks.

Most IT practitioners today are well acquainted with the concepts, benefits, and pitfalls of offshore outsourcing. Furthermore, most companies, IT or non-IT, have used some form of sourcing since the early days of the information age.

Most IT practitioners today are well acquainted with the concepts, benefits, and pitfalls of offshore outsourcing. Furthermore, most companies, IT or non-IT, have used some form of sourcing since the early days of the information age.

A recent development that should help accelerate the adoption of service-oriented architectures (SOA) is the introduction of repositories and registries for cataloging and managing services and their associated artifacts. Over the past few months, several vendors have announced such offerings, including IBM, BEA Systems, and WebMethods.

Team captains in sports arise from natural leadership skills that key players use to bring the entire team up to a new level of play. A team captain is not necessarily the quarterback and is certainly not the coach or the general manager. The captain rallies the team in tough times. During some particularly tough times at Pages Software, Bruce Henderson, one of the senior developers, roamed the halls, wise-cracking and generally encouraging the rest of the team.

In June of this year, Toyota and its Lexus brand took the top spot in 11 out of 19 vehicle categories in the J.D. Power and Associates' automotive quality survey. Yet less than a month later, Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe bowed deeply in front of the world's press, publicly apologizing for the numerous quality problems that recently have been plaguing Toyota automotive products.

Last week, Business Objects announced plans to acquire Armstrong Lang Limited Software (ALG), a vendor of profitability management and activity-based costing solutions, for approximately US $56 million. The acquisition is an all-cash transaction for all outstanding shares of ALG by Business Objects (UK) Limited, a Business Objects wholly owned UK subsidiary. Business Objects plans to use ALG's software and consulting expertise to boost its own line of business performance management offerings.

Lots of companies wrestle with organizational structure. Consultants and gurus have all sorts of ideas about how to organize technology in just about every company in the world. But what should the basics look like? What are the pieces that should work for just about all companies -- regardless of their vertical industry?

There are five primary pieces -- all under the authority of the office of the chief information officer (CIO):

A governance organization

Five years have passed since service-oriented architecture (SOA) started to become the IT industry's favorite new topic, displacing older paradigms such as client-server, object orientation, and transaction processing. When making critical decisions about future architecture and procurement plans, it is especially desirable to obtain as many hard facts as possible; so Cutter Consortium recently conducted a survey to establish what IT user organizations are thinking and doing about SOA.

Podcasting is the distribution of audio and/or video content via the Internet on a subscription basis.

Podcasting is the distribution of audio and/or video content via the Internet on a subscription basis.

In the first Executive Update of this series concerning agile code priorities (Vol. 7, No. 16), I presented a priority scheme for making code-related choices. Here in Part II, I'll go over a few different scenarios in which these priorities may be used, and I'll discuss which specific choices are best in each scenario.

The novel A Tale of Two Cities 1 begins with the oft-quoted line, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...." Although these words were written to describe the situation prior to the French Revolution, the same words could apply with equal force to the situation consumers face today with respect to protection of their private information.

The novel A Tale of Two Cities 1 begins with the oft-quoted line, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...." Although these words were written to describe the situation prior to the French Revolution, the same words could apply with equal force to the situation consumers face today with respect to protection of their private information.

Cultural misunderstandings can bring globalization to a halt! OK, that statement is a little dramatic, but you may have had this type of confusion bring some of your projects to a halt. Knowing how to avoid cultural communication misunderstandings is a competitive advantage. Thus, this Executive Update reviews three main global communication styles and offers steps on how to use this knowledge to reduce cultural snafus.

One of the most persistent truths of information technology is the phenomenon called lock-in. Lock-in describes the fact that technology platforms do not naturally interoperate and that as users make commitments to specific platforms, they are "locked-in" to their decisions. This concept has collected a lot of dust over the years seeing as IT managers have endured this reality since the beginning of automation.

One of the most persistent truths of information technology is the phenomenon called lock-in. Lock-in describes the fact that technology platforms do not naturally interoperate and that as users make commitments to specific platforms, they are "locked-in" to their decisions. This concept has collected a lot of dust over the years seeing as IT managers have endured this reality since the beginning of automation.

One of the most persistent truths of information technology is the phenomenon called lock-in. Lock-in describes the fact that technology platforms do not naturally interoperate and that as users make commitments to specific platforms, they are "locked-in" to their decisions. This concept has collected a lot of dust over the years seeing as IT managers have endured this reality since the beginning of automation.

Over the past year, I've seen a lot in business technology discipline (or not). I spent a day at a large enterprise where they explained how they had implemented 11 ERP systems and multiple instances of them. When I got up off the floor and promised them huge savings by reducing the variation in their back-office environment, they told me that they really weren't interested in the savings because they would require too many meetings, too many arguments, and -- well -- just too much discipline.

In this Advisor on agile integration, I return to the organization; specifically to improving organizational performance. One question that comes up often, particularly with large IT organizations is, "How do agile methods fit with our CMMi initiative?" In answering this question, we first need to look at the larger issue of improving overall organizational or enterprise performance.