Reports on successful projects are archived and ignored. Reports on failing projects are read and studied -- many of us have read quite a number of them.

Reports on successful projects are archived and ignored. Reports on failing projects are read and studied -- many of us have read quite a number of them.

NASA kicked off its safety climate and culture change initiative in February 2004, as a result of the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), which examined the February 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia accident. CAIB had determined that NASA's safety climate and culture contributed just as much to the accident as did any technical or physical reasons.

NASA kicked off its safety climate and culture change initiative in February 2004, as a result of the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), which examined the February 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia accident. CAIB had determined that NASA's safety climate and culture contributed just as much to the accident as did any technical or physical reasons.

Contemporary businesses run on the data they create, store, and access. We perform data backups to mitigate the risks associated with losing this critical data. We must ensure that our backups provide adequate protection from the ways in which our vital data might be lost.

Contemporary businesses run on the data they create, store, and access. We perform data backups to mitigate the risks associated with losing this critical data. We must ensure that our backups provide adequate protection from the ways in which our vital data might be lost.

IT strategy

Within the next five years, IT managers will spend most of their packaged software budget on services designed around open source software applications rather than on licenses for closed source executables.

Experimentation is essential to the growth of all organizations. It fuels the discovery and creation of knowledge and leads to the development and improvement of products, processes, and business models. Without experimentation, we might still use rocks as tools and live in caves. With breakthrough technologies, it is now possible to perform a greater number of experiments in an economically viable way to accelerate the drive toward innovation.

It's always painful for consultants to realize that some of their really great ideas don't work out over the long term for their clients, and project management offices (PMOs) seem to be the most recent casualty. PMOs should work, after all. Centralizing support and reporting functions seems logical and efficient, and there are successes -- but just not as many as there are failures.

How many management revolutions have we endured? How many times have we reorganized when a new management team arrived? Have our management structures changed with the times? What's the relationship among activities, policies, and structures?

How many management revolutions have we endured? How many times have we reorganized when a new management team arrived? Have our management structures changed with the times? What's the relationship among activities, policies, and structures?

How many management revolutions have we endured? How many times have we reorganized when a new management team arrived? Have our management structures changed with the times? What's the relationship among activities, policies, and structures?

Much of what we think about is shaped by the metaphors we use to comprehend the world. Way back in 1984, Michael Porter suggested that we had entered an "information revolution," but that viewpoint misses the forest for the trees. Information per se is not the issue. What people are doing with the information and how they are applying IT are more important than the information itself.