In his discussion of the five levels of a digital business ecosystem (DBE), Jaco Viljoen explores the idea that “choice is good because context counts.” The five levels, each with its own set of capabilities that build one on top of another, are: waterfall/traditional, hybrid Agile (a combination of waterfall and Agile), regular delivery, continuous delivery, and continuous exploration. The five DBEs provide insight into which process-building blocks to apply. Viljoen also discusses using a framework to achieve business agility at scale.

Matthew Ganis and Michael Ackerbauer describe how to build awesome teams. You want to be Agile (of course!) and adopt Agile practices. Awesome teams have the skills and resources to fulfill their mission and include the right mix of personalities. The authors argue that the organization is really a “team of teams” that needs a shared purpose and way of working to make the abstract concrete. According to them, awesome teams build on a common foundation based on the concept of Breakthrough Thinking/diversity of thought.

Gene Callahan has some great advice for build­ing awesome people. Beginning with the idea of the division of labor, Callahan walks us through the history of how traditional organizations find themselves as a collection of specialists who struggle to be responsive to the changing marketplace. He then examines the need for people who are generalizing specialists (people who can collaborate effectively and learn from one another).

John Hogan provides some insights on delighting customers. He argues for a customer-focused organizational structure, with Agile teams supported by Agile leadership. Hogan describes the importance of goal setting to focus on delighting customers, supported by incremental planning and delivery to do so. 

Business agility is something that emerges over time through a lot of hard work. Excelling at it requires true agility across all of IT, not just software development, as well as a disciplined organization that can leverage the IT capability. And, because the environment in which your organization operates evolves over time, and your competitors and partners also evolve, business agility proves to be a moving target in practice.

This Advisor explores the mechanics behind various decision-making models and examines the boundaries and use cases for each. It discusses the qualitative value that experience or intuition can add to data-driven quantitative analysis, thereby providing the best approach to decision making.

AI’s disruption has yet to be felt in the workplace, but there are waves of changes coming our way that will alter the way we work as well as the type of work we do.

We believe that at the heart of the ability to manage an ongoing and multilayered organizational transformation rests a sophisticated enterprise architecture capability with a specific charter to act as a transformation engine connecting strategic intent and execution excellence.

Designing cognitive computing systems (CCSs) requires a strong case for the investment into those systems. Organizations must not only be able to justify the initial investment into developing a CCS, but also think through the investments that will be needed to ensure it can be refined and enhanced over time.

This Executive Update presents a framework in the form of processes, techniques, measurement metrics, and best practices to guide you toward successful API monetization.

This Executive Update presents a framework in the form of processes, techniques, measurement metrics, and best practices to guide you toward successful API monetization.

I’ve had the good fortune for decades to work with project managers in companies ranging across many industries. From these experiences, the best project managers I’ve worked with seem to have the following traits.

There is perhaps only one thing more crucial to secure than money: information. The heavy burdens associated with securing the authenticity and history of data are well-known to several sectors.

Establishing business architecture within an organization takes passion, persistence, and patience. Inspired by over a decade and a half of helping organizations to mature their practices — combined with personal mountaineering experiences — this Advisor shares a few lessons for conquering the “business architecture summit” using mountains as metaphor.

Based on responses so far, an ongoing Cutter Consortium survey on the adoption and application of AI technology provides some insight into the issue of enterprise AI adoption trends.

Based on the demand for Agile skills in the workplace, it is quite clear that leaders across the globe are coming to rely more and more on Agile principles and practices to achieve their goals. What makes some of these leaders successful with their Agile adoptions while other leaders seem to struggle? What is going on in these organizations?

Keng Siau and Weiyu Wang examine prevailing concepts of trust in general and in the context of AI applications and human-computer interaction in particular. They discuss the three types of characteristics that determine trust in this area: human, environment, and technology. They emphasize that trust building is a dynamic proc­ess and outline how to build trust in AI systems in two stages: initial trust formation and continuous trust development.

Keng Siau and Weiyu Wang examine prevailing concepts of trust in general and in the context of AI applications and human-computer interaction in particular. They discuss the three types of characteristics that determine trust in this area: human, environment, and technology. They emphasize that trust building is a dynamic proc­ess and outline how to build trust in AI systems in two stages: initial trust formation and continuous trust development.

The authors emphasize the need to connect and collectively harness advances in different elements of AI and outline autonomous business entities as examples of convergence of AI. The authors discuss the application of AI, not only to improve business operations, but also for product adaptation and to enable and support business model innovations, thereby making the entire business “smart.” They also explore “data labs” and “data factories,” which facilitate business model innovation. Finally, the authors argue that while AI-driven, radical automation of businesses will replace human work in some areas, humans will remain relevant in others.

Raj Ramesh discusses business model transformation with a focus on the insurance sector. He covers the potential of AI in insurance and then expands his discussion to the ingredients necessary for AI to provide good value to the business in any sector.

Raj Ramesh discusses business model transformation with a focus on the insurance sector. He covers the potential of AI in insurance and then expands his discussion to the ingredients necessary for AI to provide good value to the business in any sector.

Vipin Jain and Seema Jain discuss the opportunities emerging from artificial intelligence and how cognitive technologies will fundamentally change the way government works. They outline how the US public sector is currently adopting and planning to embrace AI and ML in various applications. They also highlight priorities for federally funded research in the US. To help developers in conceiving and developing AI appli­cations, the authors present an AI adoption frame­work and briefly discuss the categories of AI-branded services available from leading cloud service providers. They finish with a consideration of whether AI is a job creator or a job destroyer.

Vipin Jain and Seema Jain discuss the opportunities emerging from artificial intelligence and how cognitive technologies will fundamentally change the way government works. They outline how the US public sector is currently adopting and planning to embrace AI and ML in various applications. They also highlight priorities for federally funded research in the US. To help developers in conceiving and developing AI appli­cations, the authors present an AI adoption frame­work and briefly discuss the categories of AI-branded services available from leading cloud service providers. They finish with a consideration of whether AI is a job creator or a job destroyer.

Hemamalini Kumaran, Prema Sankaran, and Raj Gururajan discuss how AI is transforming the banking sector. They outline how Indian and US banks are using AI to gain significant benefits and offer an enhanced customer experience. The authors examine the key drivers that inspire banks to embrace AI, the challenges involved in implementing it, and what needs to be considered in applying AI to best serve customers.

Hemamalini Kumaran, Prema Sankaran, and Raj Gururajan discuss how AI is transforming the banking sector. They outline how Indian and US banks are using AI to gain significant benefits and offer an enhanced customer experience. The authors examine the key drivers that inspire banks to embrace AI, the challenges involved in implementing it, and what needs to be considered in applying AI to best serve customers.