Sometimes it helps to step back a little and assess how we're doing, to identify the management trends that seem to be taking hold. The data we have collected over the past year suggests a number of trends -- mostly good -- that we should identify and discuss. These include:

Sometimes it helps to step back a little and assess how we're doing, to identify the management trends that seem to be taking hold. The data we have collected over the past year suggests a number of trends -- mostly good -- that we should identify and discuss. These include:

During the past two to three years, both the IT and business communities have been seriously discussing the possibility that Web services may become the next big thing.

Although corporate America is still reeling from the excessive IT spending of the late 1990s, numerous disparate, standalone systems still abound in many organizations as a painful reminder to the myopic and reactive approach to enterprise computing. Many systems acquired (or built) with the intent of addressing only one business problem are now strong candidates for abandonment.

"Adopt thy partners. The real-time enterprise must span the physical boundaries of an enterprise and should extend as a virtual enterprise through the entire end-to-end chain. For example, Colgate-Palmolive trimmed its inventory 13% and saved [US] $150 million by attaching its order planning systems to thousands of Wal-Mart and Kmart cash registers.

Those of us in the technology business tend to overestimate the short-term impact of new technologies and underestimate the long-term impact.

Those of us in the technology business tend to overestimate the short-term impact of new technologies and underestimate the long-term impact.

When Tim Berners-Lee speaks, people listen. This stems from the fact that a decade ago Berners-Lee came up with the World Wide Web, and it was the technology behind the Web that made possible the creation of the first browsers, millions of hyperlinked Web sites, and the explosion of the Internet.

When Tim Berners-Lee speaks, people listen. This stems from the fact that a decade ago Berners-Lee came up with the World Wide Web, and it was the technology behind the Web that made possible the creation of the first browsers, millions of hyperlinked Web sites, and the explosion of the Internet.

In the past few decades, information technology has become increasingly important to enterprises of every size around the world. IT has literally changed the way the world works. And in the 21st century, not only must organizations continue to reengineer their businesses, they have to do so at breakneck speed.

The "agile software movement" has reached a point where more and more organizations around the world are beginning to use, or at least experiment with, many of the major ideas involved in agile development.