That businesses want IT investments to be firmly rooted in business strategy is a given. And there is plentiful advice available on how to align investments with strategies. But what new IT investments to consider? How are the potential investments identified and validated?

That businesses want IT investments to be firmly rooted in business strategy is a given. And there is plentiful advice available on how to align investments with strategies. But what new IT investments to consider? How are the potential investments identified and validated?

That businesses want IT investments to be firmly rooted in business strategy is a given. And there is plentiful advice available on how to align investments with strategies. But what new IT investments to consider? How are the potential investments identified and validated?

A survey Cutter Consortium conducted in November 2004 of 110 end-user organizations based worldwide reveals that companies are struggling to sufficiently plan for the end-user training requirements of their business performance management applications.

Agile is becoming more widely accepted. Over the past six months, a number of large organizations have contacted me for help implementing Scrum within their enterprise. This has led me to ponder what a top-down implementation might look like.

In examining BPM adoption trends, I focused specifically on end-user organizations. Therefore, I filtered out survey responses from software vendors and software services organizations that market BPM software products or assist organizations with BPM initiatives. Vendors and services firms typically apply new technologies (in assisting clients) to a greater extent than do end-user companies. This tends to skew survey results, giving the appearance that more end-user organizations implement the technology than is often the case.

Hidden costs are the most difficult to predict but tend to have the gravest consequences. For a BPM project, hidden costs are those that remain undiscovered during the project definition phase but surface during implementation because of undisclosed management requirements or bias.

Business performance management has generated considerable interest among organizations worldwide. Is it just the latest IT buzzword destined to die out in a few months, or is it here to stay? In this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Curt Hall presents the results of a recent study on the acceptance and benefits of BPM, predicting that the adoption of BPM practices will enjoy steady but moderate growth through the end of this year.

While much of the business community is focused on the mega mergers between telecommunications carriers such as SBC and AT&T or the tumultuous acquisition of PeopleSoft by Oracle, a far smaller but potentially more significant acquisition by IBM Corporation of Corio Inc. could serve as a real indicator of the future direction of IT.

While much of the business community is focused on the mega mergers between telecommunications carriers such as SBC and AT&T or the tumultuous acquisition of PeopleSoft by Oracle, a far smaller but potentially more significant acquisition by IBM Corporation of Corio Inc. could serve as a real indicator of the future direction of IT.