We've talked a lot about how e-business is different from traditional business: new technologies, 24/7 availability, worldwide access, and faster time to market are just a few of the ways that the e-business world is different. Most of these changes are concrete and obvious, but e-business is different in intangible ways, too. This article addresses one of the more surprising of these intangibles: business-IT alignment. A perennial bugaboo for traditional business and IT, business-IT alignment is alive and well in the e-business world!

One surprising result from a recent Cutter Consortium business-IT strategies survey is that, on average, those who spend more money on e-business have a higher e-business success factor. Assuming that higher cost comes from larger, more complex projects, we tend to assume that higher project price tags will be accompanied by lower success factors. Respondents surprised us by reporting just the opposite. As Figure 1 shows, those who have spent less than US $1 million on e-business report lower success factors than those who have spent more than $1 million.

At first blush, agile methodology projects seem better than heavy methodology projects at meeting their schedule, cost, and quality targets. Projects using agile approaches reported better schedule and cost performance indices and were perceived to be equal to, if not slightly better in quality than, projects using heavy methodology.

This Executive Report advocates that organizations striving to excel at exploiting information technology adopt a new IT mindset. Why is a new mindset necessary? As others have noted before, by changing how we look at the world, we can change the world itself.

This Executive Report advocates that organizations striving to excel at exploiting information technology adopt a new IT mindset. Why is a new mindset necessary? As others have noted before, by changing how we look at the world, we can change the world itself.

This Executive Report advocates that organizations striving to excel at exploiting information technology adopt a new IT mindset. Why is a new mindset necessary? As others have noted before, by changing how we look at the world, we can change the world itself.

The strategic significance of information technology demands that organizations adopt a new IT mindset. It is a mindset around IT concepts, IT relevance, and IT ownership that permeates organizations and predetermines their responses to IT-based threats and opportunities. The new IT mindset engenders a new viewpoint on information technology as a business resource and leads to optimal IT investments.

The strategic significance of information technology demands that organizations adopt a new IT mindset. It is a mindset around IT concepts, IT relevance, and IT ownership that permeates organizations and predetermines their responses to IT-based threats and opportunities. The new IT mindset engenders a new viewpoint on information technology as a business resource and leads to optimal IT investments.

The strategic significance of information technology demands that organizations adopt a new IT mindset. It is a mindset around IT concepts, IT relevance, and IT ownership that permeates organizations and predetermines their responses to IT-based threats and opportunities. The new IT mindset engenders a new viewpoint on information technology as a business resource and leads to optimal IT investments.

Editor's note: This is the third Update in a three-part series. The first two appeared previously as Business-IT Strategies Executive Update Vol. 4, No. 20 and Vol. 4, No. 22.

IT shops generally have treated software development as an art rather than a science. After a brief interest in the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model (CMM), most IT shops have reverted back to application development as usual. Unfortunately, if a firm's e-business applications fail, it can have disastrous consequences.

Editor's note: This Executive Report is the first of a two-part series on enterprise integration. The second installment, "Making Enterprise Integration Real," will be published in the first quarter of 2002.

The past year was tumultuous in so many different respects, IT being just one of them. One of the conclusions we can draw about this year is that change happens fast, often faster than we can react. I'd like to take this opportunity to reflect on the technology trends I've observed in the past 12 months. One of these technologies -- enterprise application integration (EAI) -- is of great interest to me.

Within any industry, companies are guided by the same business directives as well as by the same laws and regulations. Therefore, at any company, the business processes that guide both tactical and strategic operations are expected to be invoked in well-understood business scenarios.

Within any industry, companies are guided by the same business directives as well as by the same laws and regulations. Therefore, at any company, the business processes that guide both tactical and strategic operations are expected to be invoked in well-understood business scenarios. However, despite operating under the same regulations, companies have wildly varying degrees of success.

I have been a systems professional for more than 20 years. For two of those years I was a consultant, where I was enlightened about the "elevator conversation." It goes something like this:

Projects are an integral part of business. In this fast-paced, ever-changing business world, doing projects well is crucial. To clarify what I mean by "project" in the accompanying Executive Report: a project is a planned set of actions taken to improve a business process or to implement a new business process.

One of the unresolved issues associated with software methodologies is how to select a software product release date. Current thinking, embodied by the so-called "agile" software methods, is that software should be released frequently to the customer. Older, more staid methods are often silent on this topic.