Strategic advice to leverage new technologies
Technology is at the heart of nearly every enterprise, enabling new business models and strategies, and serving as the catalyst to industry convergence. Leveraging the right technology can improve business outcomes, providing intelligence and insights that help you make more informed and accurate decisions. From finding patterns in data through data science, to curating relevant insights with data analytics, to the predictive abilities and innumerable applications of AI, to solving challenging business problems with ML, NLP, and knowledge graphs, technology has brought decision-making to a more intelligent level. Keep pace with the technology trends, opportunities, applications, and real-world use cases that will move your organization closer to its transformation and business goals.
Insight
I had the pleasure of visiting New Zealand this week to attend the annual Software Developer's conference, which attracts some of the best IT gurus in the world. This is my fourth visit to New Zealand since 1990, and while I still haven't had a chance to drive around the country and see the spectacular scenery, I always come away with some new insights and perspectives on software development.
If you read the popular press, you might think the e-business trend has come to an end. Amazon.com and Cisco each warned analysts that they might not meet their numbers. At the same time, Nike complained that its new supply chain system had actually caused it to miss its numbers for the last quarter.
The Object Management Group (OMG) has just ended another technical meeting. Usually, these meetings are devoted to committee work on various standards that the OMG is adopting. In this case, however, something rather momentous happened. The OMG has begun the formal process of changing its entire orientation.
Chances are, you've heard some of these questions echo in the halls of your IT organization -- and for good reason. Size metrics can be very controversial. Whenever the subject arises, it's not unusual for camps to form and for an almost religious-like fervor to engulf the debate. Many fall into the trap of arguing over which metric is "good" and which is "bad." What's better: function points or source lines of code? I'm right! You're wrong! But what about when both sides are right? That's tricky because, indeed, the world is not black and white.
When I conduct a presentation on software measurement, no subject generates more debate than project size. I often describe the Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) core measures of size, time, effort, and defects and find that members of the audience appreciate what the latter three measures are but need to know more about that elusive first metric -- size. Below are eight commonly asked questions on the subject along with responses that might help clarify matters.
The use of software metrics to manage and control project development and delivery is an accepted industry-wide best practice. Even though standardized metric definitions and practices are not yet fully developed, measurement programs are evident in more than 80% of IT organizations today. However, the content and the deployment of these measurement programs vary widely across IT organizations. No IT manager will argue with the adage you can't manage what you don't measure. What is often debated is the effectiveness and usefulness of particular metrics.