As an industry, software design has a long history of projects that run long and over budget. There are three main reasons why this happens.

I just returned from the annual meeting of the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG). IFPUG is an organization dedicated to the idea of measuring software process, and once again they had a terrific conference. I presented a reprise of my "Avoiding Dysfunctional Measures," which explores how difficult it is to measure organizational activity, and how we sometimes assume things are working when they aren't.

As an industry, software design has a long history of projects that run long and over budget. There are three main reasons why this happens. First, project managers may attempt to set schedules and estimate work without a clear understanding of what the project involves. This is especially true when the project involves a desired result unlike any previously attempted by the project team. Second, tasks that should have been a part of the project plan are omitted, generally because of oversight on the part of the project manager.

It's been widely reported that SAP, PeopleSoft, Baan, Oracle, and the other packaged application vendors have fallen on hard times.

It's been widely reported that SAP, PeopleSoft, Baan, Oracle, and the other packaged application vendors have fallen on hard times.

John Hanlon's group at Ergometrics, an Ireland-based developer of dashboard and gauges for benchmarking across a wide range of industry, has done wild new t

This report looks at how you identify and model systems and business-IT alignment requirements. It offers some examples of how the methodology can actually be applied both in traditional systems/technology project selection and management, and then in the larger business-IT alignment arena.

To survive the pace of business and technology change that your organization is experiencing in today's world, you need a repeatable requirements management methodology. You also need a methodology that provides insight into project requirements before you spend serious money. The requirements management methodology described briefly in this Executive Summary may fulfill that need.

Tony Candito, CIO of New England Financial (NEF), has been with the company since 1974. He is responsible for a staff of approximately 800 people in multiple locations. In this Executive Update, Candito talks about his most recent challenge, combining NEF's IT department with a portion of the IT department of its parent company, Metlife.

As manager of business systems analysis at Focus on the Family -- an international, nonprofit organization of Christian ministries including print publications, radio, and video -- Paul Lewandowski is responsible for managing a team of analysts that works to determine the IT needs for 1,300 employees partitioned into more than 70 divisions.