The "human side" of an outsourcing deal may be difficult to visualize at first, but if the fears and apprehensions of your staff are not managed well, it may not be long before it is the leading problem your organization faces. In some outsourcing deals, employees have not only refused to work, but they have deliberately sabotaged the process itself.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a Trends Advisor entitled, "Why You Might Not Want to Sell Your Google Stock Just Yet" (4 May). In that column, I pointed out that Google had made an acquisition of one of the more interesting 3D tools that I'd seen in recent years: SketchUp. Because it is so easy to model things, especially buildings, I speculated that Google had pulled off a coup.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a Trends Advisor entitled, "Why You Might Not Want to Sell Your Google Stock Just Yet" (4 May). In that column, I pointed out that Google had made an acquisition of one of the more interesting 3D tools that I'd seen in recent years: SketchUp. Because it is so easy to model things, especially buildings, I speculated that Google had pulled off a coup.

Corporate scandals leave a long, bitter aftertaste. While last month's convictions of Enron's Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling may signal the end of the most notorious corporate scandal of recent times, it has not signaled the end of the problems associated with poor corporate governance.

Corporate scandals leave a long, bitter aftertaste. While last month's convictions of Enron's Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling may signal the end of the most notorious corporate scandal of recent times, it has not signaled the end of the problems associated with poor corporate governance.

I was recently asked to give a talk to a group of Irish software companies about software process improvement (SPI). As I thought about the topic, I realized that to most people, SPI conveys expectations such as deterministic, comprehensive early planning; a detailed process focus; waterfall (serial) lifecycle (planning, requirements, design, etc.); extensive documentation deliverables to show progress; and internal metrics.

Knowledge transfer represents a critical stage in the transition phase of a business process offshoring (BPO) project. Often, the offshore service provider (OSP) staff, although skilled, might lack specific expertise unique to the specific business processes they will oversee. It is vital that the offshoring organization establish a structured, disciplined knowledge transfer program to ensure that OSP personnel are adequately prepared to assume daily business process management when that day arrives.

Knowledge transfer represents a critical stage in the transition phase of a business process offshoring (BPO) project. Often, the offshore service provider (OSP) staff, although skilled, might lack specific expertise unique to the specific business processes they will oversee. It is vital that the offshoring organization establish a structured, disciplined knowledge transfer program to ensure that OSP personnel are adequately prepared to assume daily business process management when that day arrives.

Projects sometimes happen to deliver a product that meets every requirement specified but ultimately appears not to address important needs of the stakeholders. Certainly there are many possible causes for that. In this Advisor, I focus on one cause that I believe is not always properly understood -- partly because of the flawed notion of quality of IS systems. The problem I will address is that of requirements quality and responsibility for requirement analysis in the context of IS procurement.

The great rush to decentralize heirarchical decisionmaking in American corporations has been accompanied by a well-intentioned but hopelessly misguided faith in the power of teams to reach optimal decisions. In the realm of IT decisionmaking and governance, teamthink is as often a value killer as creator. Consider the ways this is so, first.

Effective coordination of the innovative minds, both within the company and externally, is necessary to tap the creative juices of the best contributors. This is a difficult problem, since we have created organizational silos that don't necessary welcome external inputs. An innovative culture has to be rebuilt and reconnected for effective communication and collaboration.

Oracle announced last week that it will acquire Demantra Inc., a vendor of demand-driven planning applications that use BI analytics to help manufacturers and retailers predict demand for their products based on seasonality, long- and short-term trends, and promotions and pricing changes. Oracle is expected to finalize the deal later this month; however, financial details were not disclosed.

I bumped into an old friend at the Cutter Summit last month whom I hadn't seen for several years. He told me he was now a member of the nefarious three-time losers club as a CIO. When I asked what had happened, he described a consistent story of joining fast-growing, venture-capital-funded, small- to medium-sized firms, and having a wild ride for a couple of years. Inevitably, entrepreneurs in the firm would give way to professional management, and soon thereafter, so would he (my words, not his).

A friend of mine evocatively condemns many development organizations as "team ghettos." Designing a team ghetto is easy: organize developers into teams and organize management into silos over the teams, then watch the predictable inversion layer form between the two environments so that nothing ever gets across whole and unscathed -- not information, not people, and certainly not trust, honesty, and the truth about operations, competition, customers, progress, and results.

In the business world, one man's risk is another man's opportunity. So, too, risks that are insignificant for one type of business may be of major concern to another. The risks faced by an IT project are in themselves not unique. Any risk that can be postulated for an IT project can be identified in the risk environment of projects in other technical areas. What is different and generically characteristic of IT is its typical project risk profile. By their very nature, IT projects tend to exacerbate certain kinds of risk.

In the business world, one man's risk is another man's opportunity. So, too, risks that are insignificant for one type of business may be of major concern to another. The risks faced by an IT project are in themselves not unique. Any risk that can be postulated for an IT project can be identified in the risk environment of projects in other technical areas. What is different and generically characteristic of IT is its typical project risk profile. By their very nature, IT projects tend to exacerbate certain kinds of risk.

Innovation

The application of wikis will increasingly infiltrate forward-thinking, mainstream enterprises in the form of applications that will save these companies money and enable them to collaborate, and therefore innovate, in new ways.

Enterprise architecture (EA) has taken on renewed importance in the past few years. Yet this is in contrast to the fact that EA has largely had a history of failure to deliver on promised value. Much of this disappointment can be traced to a lack of alignment with business drivers and requirements. As enterprise architects, it is incumbent upon us to understand and address these failures and to deliver value that aligns with business goals.

How do you measure your vendors' performance? On-time delivery? Reject rate? Lowest product cost? Quality of service? These are all important metrics; however, they may not provide you with sufficient information to determine the adequacy of your return on the investment you made with your vendors. Such metrics tend to focus on the tactical attributes of the relationship but don't necessarily help evaluate the broader strategic attributes.

There's a clever saying that goes: "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is." This difference was driven home to me on a recent engagement where I spent time with two different groups at the same multinational corporation. In the morning, I discussed SOA with the architecture steering committee (name changed to protect the innocent), where we discussed the issues of SOA and what was needed to realize that potential at the enterprise level.

The future ain't what it used to be.

-- Yogi Berra

The future ain't what it used to be.

-- Yogi Berra

The mobile revolution has just begun, yet mobile phone ownership is already at near saturation levels in many countries. The key drivers of this mobile revolution are: the grand convergence of computing and communications in a small device; wireless connectivity; and the ability to integrate voice, data, and multimedia.

The mobile revolution has just begun, yet mobile phone ownership is already at near saturation levels in many countries. The key drivers of this mobile revolution are: the grand convergence of computing and communications in a small device; wireless connectivity; and the ability to integrate voice, data, and multimedia.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) has proven to be the most popular business software of the 20th century and the trend continues to grow -- reaching new industries and market segments around the globe [3]. Firms implement ERP because they expect the software to enable strategically important organizational change. However, many organizations find that achieving the business objectives associated with ERP technology adoption is problematic [4].