From the Archives | Cutter Consortium

Data Quality Defined

Thomas Redman

For more on IT's role in improving data quality, see the January 2003 issue of Cutter IT Journal, available from Cutter Consortium at +1 781 641 9876, fax +1 781 648 1950, or e-mail

Managing Innovation: What We Think in 2003

Steve Andriole

Despite the bursting of the technology bubble in 2000, the pace of technological innovation remains fast. However, many companies today are tempering their interest in new computing and communications technologies because of fear instilled by that implosion. Technology spending has been nothing short of anemic since 2000.

Does this make sense? We don't think so. In fact, technology innovation has not only continued to advance at a fast clip, but the nature of the innovation has been nothing short of profound.

Who Owns Strategy? Everyone

Steve Andriole

Everyone talks a good strategy game. It's impossible to get a CEO or CIO to admit anything other than his or her intense commitment to thinking strategically, to thinking "outside the box." The fact is that there are levels of strategy, tactics, and operations, and they often get confused. Figure 1 shows the differences among the categories.

Who owns all these activities in your company? While we'll focus primarily on strategic requirements in this Update, it's also important to map the requirements-gathering processes and identify their owners.

Thinking Counts When It Comes to Strategy

Steve Andriole

Some companies constantly adjust their strategy -- business models, processes, and responses to the competition -- while other companies have offices of strategic planning, which conduct annual strategic planning exercises that involve lots of senior people and take several months to complete.

Not too long ago, when everyone was focused on e-business, business models were scrubbed several times a month. When the dot-coms crashed and burned, many companies returned to their strategic planning roots, to processes that assumed more continuity and less volatility.

Managing Technology Decisionmaking

Ken Orr

Despite the billions of dollars spent on technology, not much money is spent on the way major technology decisions are made. Choosing technologies is not unlike picking stocks; there are many from which to choose, and you can't make always make the right call. In an up market, almost all stock choices look good; in a down market, few choices are attractive. The same thing is true of technology decisions.

Managing IT Innovation: Spotting the Next Big Thing

Robert Austin

Few areas of business have produced as many surprises as has IT. If we look back over the past 40 years or so, we see an accelerating pattern of advance, driven by Moore's Law, in which technologies rise, propagate, and are then eclipsed by new and better technologies. And IT companies come and go almost as rapidly (e.g., Wang, Digital).