This week, we're taking a look back at five of the most intriguing articles published in Cutter IT Journal over this past year. As you might imagine, it was no small task to cull the list and pare it down to just five articles. Look for these lists from each of our four practice areas for a compilation of Cutter's 20 most intriguing articles of the year.

This week, we're taking a look back at five of the most-intriguing articles published in Cutter's Data Insight & Social BI practice over this past year. As you might imagine, it was no small task to cull the list and pare it down to just five articles.

In just about every due diligence engagement I carry out, the VC and I spend a lot of time on scalabity of the software architecture. The company whose software architecture we are evaluating usually has a good track record of successfully scaling up on quite a few technology and business dimensions. If we extrapolate the historical growth rate a few years into the future, the company really looks attractive. The concern, however, is that the company might run into a hard barrier for growth.

Our favorite philosopher, the mighty Aristotle, remarks in his book that people are hardwired to enjoy art; it's part of what makes them human.

In just about every due diligence engagement I carry out, the VC and I spend a lot of time on scalabity of the software architecture. The company whose software architecture we are evaluating usually has a good track record of successfully scaling up on quite a few technology and business dimensions.

Enterprise portfolio management has been evolving for the past several years toward a unified vision that incorporates the diverse areas of portfolio concepts, bringing them together through s

Good infrastructure is like having a good dinner party planner -- when everything goes well, few guests notice or appreciate the careful plans and up-front investments that went into the event. Yet if and when something does go wrong, things seem to come to an abrupt halt, often with embarrassing results.

This Advisor is a continuation of the "Scrum Ain't Enough" series (see "Agile Analytics: Community, Customers, and and Collaboration," 18 October 2011, and "

"The company is fundamentally sound. The balance sheet is strong. Our financial liquidity has never been stronger. And we again have record operating and financial results."

My Cutter colleagues will give you excellent advice on some of the key elements to making Lean-Agile work at scale. Even with their advice, however, implementing any large-scale change is very difficult.

In my last Advisor (see "Take a SCARF to Architecture Reviews," 30 November 2011), I wrote about the SCARF model (status, certainty,

Since I wrote the Cutter IT Journal article "Operational Excellence, the CIO, and Cloud Computing" (Vol. 24, No.

The latest news to set the social analytics world buzzing is retailing giant Walmart's "Shopycat" social shopping application for Facebook.

When making investment decisions that could impact the business for multiple decades, it is vital to take a measured approach. Forward-thinking leaders and stakeholders should evaluate choices and trade-offs based on a long-term view with a broad historical perspective.

In my recent Cutter Webinar "Implementing a Technical Debt Prevention, Measurement, and Reduction Program in Your Company" (8 June 2011

The business analysis profession is in the midst of change. Work is underway within organizations and associations to formalize and standardize what it means to be a business analyst (BA). The role has had a long and tortuous existence. A child of necessity, the role evolved to bridge the gap between what those responsible for operating an organization wanted to do and what those responsible for implementing technology were able to deliver.

It's clear that our once-a-year, work-your-way-through-a-slide-set approach to computer security training doesn't work. Even with this training, people still write down their passwords, click on links in emails from untrusted sources, and download free software with unknown provenance. For example, last year, 10,000 New York State employees were sent a phishing email to test their ability to recognize suspicious email and links. Three-quarters of the recipients opened the email, and 17% clicked on the embedded link.

If there were any lingering doubts as to social media's potential to attack an organization's brand or reputation, they now have been laid to rest. The most recent incident involves an undercover video circulated by an animal rights group that shows alleged cruelty at a

In case you have forgotten your high school biology, convergent evolution occurs when different organisms from different genetic lineages acquire the same trait. Bats and birds both have wings, even though they do not share any ancestor with wings.

David Anderson describes Kanban as an evolutionary change method.1 In comparison to other agile methods, Kanban can be introduced with little changes. But what are the differences between different methods? And is there a way to handle changes more successfully?

I've been doing architecture for close to 20 years now and have built my practices based on what I've read, studied, and researched, and also from my experience of what works with clients.

[From the Editor: This week's Advisor is from William Ulrich's introduction to the November 2011 issue of Cutter IT Journal "Business Architecture in Practice: Lessons from the Trenches" (Vol. 24, No. 11).

For the last decade I have been asked, "What is the ROI for collaboration?" I have come to several conclusions about this: one, that it is the wrong question to ask (and is a trap in itself) and two, everyone wants collaboration, but no one seems willing to pay fo

One of my favorite sayings is from former US President Teddy Roosevelt, who once said that “Risk is like fire: If controlled it will help you; if uncontrolled it will rise up and destroy you.”

Mobility is now one of the top strategic priorities for organizations. In fact, supporting mobility is seen as so important that some organizations are offering employees the option of using their own personal devices.