Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

A year ago, most budget researchers like myself were hopeful that the budgets for the coming years would reflect an economic stability -- where businesses and nonprofits alike could begin rebuilding as unemployment concerns started fading away. Yet as the new year dawned, however, it became obvious that world economies had not turned the corner.

This is the seventh annual CBR IT budget survey, with each issue presenting the data and its implications for IT organizations. My contributions always follow a distinct theme, as reflected in each article title:

• 2006 -- "IT Budgeting: A Management Perspective"

I have recently confronted a need to revisit these topics. To remount, if you will, my hobbyhorse. Industrial thinking and methods, never quiet for long, seem poised to make further advances in the ongoing struggle to standardize work (of the many) for the convenience of those in charge (the few). I believe we should resist whenever we can.

A few months ago, I was asked by a colleague who graduated from the Paris School of Mines to contribute an article to the school's alumni journal on the topic of the impact of "new technologies" on the work of consultants.

Business intelligence and analytics are becoming increasingly important in creating an agile approach to business process/performance management.

The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has a long history of process improvement research, and -- like almost everyone who has proposed a model or method for software -- a long history of fighting misperceptions. Chief among these is the idea that picking the "best" model or method and checking off a series of boxes will fix whatever ails you, indefinitely.

In this series of Advisors ("What's a Knowledge Worker to Do? Part I" and "What's a Knowledge Worker to Do?