The ancient philosopher, Aristotle, wrote a book about "making." In it, he used plays -- tragedies -- as his example of a complicated made thing, and he declared plot the "soul" of tragedy. He defined "plot" as the principle of arrangement for all the other parts.

If I were to design a certification program for agile consultants (not that I think such a program would be helpful!), one of the first questions would be "Have you ever settled a discussion about iteration length or sprint size?" If someone were to answer no, that person has probably never consulted in a real-world project.

If your company is considering a new mobile operating system, Windows Phone may be its most intriguing option.

Executives make decisions every day. They base them on their wealth of personal and professional experience. They base them on the available information sets.

When discussing why executives should leverage business architecture to facilitate strategic planning and transformation, it is useful to examine the challenges facing organizations making large-scale, multiyear IT investments.

The onslaught of mobile devices into the office is no surprise. It has been going on for years, with workers bringing their PDAs, BlackBerrys, and smartphones to work, and, most recently, their iPhones and iPads.

Advanced data visualization tools were first applied in the scientific and engineering domains for building models for complex applications involving extremely large data sets containing many variables, such as fluid flow analysis, aerodynamic simulation, and interpreting

Right now, most complex project managers (CPMs) are accidents of their experience rather than the product of a planned professional development program. To be really effective in managing complex projects, organizations will have to reverse that.

Here's a question for you: who do you think is planning to spend US $20 billion a year on cloud computing, every year? I can't imagine that you came up with any answer other than the US government, and you're right. Well, almost.

Cloud computing "as a platform" will change the economics of computing by replacing up-front CAPEX with a more scalable, variable cost structure based on an on-demand, (almost) friction-free entry/exit, elastic, pay-as-you-go m

In yet another conversation with a client, I was reviewing the activities that its architects were performing.

Recently, I wrote about the transition from a document-centric approach to knowledge management (KM) -- with its emphasis on content management systems (CMSs) and search engines -- to "social KM," in which, to quote myself: "It's not (just) what you know; it's who you know" ("It's Not (Just) What You Know; It's

Suppliers want customers to know three key things about client management. Let's look at each in more detail.

In December of 2010, I discussed BI and data warehousing developments that companies should be examining (in 2011), including mobile BI (see "What Lies Ahead: BI and Data Warehousing Predict

It's worthwhile (I think) to have clear language established and agreed upon for any discussion.

Cutter colleague Jens Coldewey recently published a very incisive Advisor entitled "Pitfalls of Agile

Developing software in a way that enables reliable, repeatable deployments should not be a radical idea. Like many named concepts, devops makes formal the practices of many successful teams. This is also true of software development practices for agile and lean, and devops shares some values with agile -- especially a focus on delivering value to the business.

Most successful IT executives grasp the minimal appeal of business-alignment metrics focused on application downtime, system uptime/availability, speed of endpoint provisioning, mean time to repair

Lately, interest has been shifting from the physical layer of the Internet of Things toward a more abstract layer of a Web of Things (WoT),

At present, establishing reserve data centers could be recommended to almost any organization and company that hopes to ensure business continuity and avoid possible financial losses associated with the failure of the main databases.

There has been a lot of talk lately about Hadoop and MapReduce in the role of analyzing "big data."1 Our research shows, however, that use of Hadoop and MapReduce in traditional enterprises (i.e., non-Internet-based companies) remains quite limited compared to

A friend of mine was recently asked by his new CEO to provide a roadmap for the coming two years.

It is depressing to see that the "Jumping the Radioactive Walrus" syndrome is alive and well in the US as well as in Japan. According to a recent report by the US Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the safety culture at the Hanford nuclear waste treatment and immobilization plant in Washington State is "flawed and effectively defeats" the 20-year Department of Energy (DOE) requirement that there be "a culture that encourages setting and maintaining high standards.

Although the etymology is probably forever lost in history, some trace the origins of the term “risk” back to the Greek poet Homer and his descriptions of Odysseus’s encounter at sea with the twin threats of the whirlpool Cha

Recently, my old friend and colleague Conrad Weisert sent me an enormously important new manifesto, entitled "Programming Standards & Methodology Manifesto,"1 which argues that software engineering should focus on the product rather than the process. And he does this in little over a page of clearly articulated prose.