Many managers use the mantra, "do more with less." At the recent Agile 2010 conference, Pat Reed from GAP, who copresented with me, shortened this mantra to "do less." The theme of our presentation was value optimization or, as Pat likes to say, "value imagineering" -- determining the highest-valued chunks of functionality to implement next, whether those chunks are project

In the previous Advisor (see "Seeking Out Systemic Risk," 12 August 2010), I discussed the US Congress's establishment of a Financial Stability Council (FSC), one of the main purposes of which is to put an end to, or at least minimize, the effects of firms considered "too big to fail.

I have the highest regard for Apple CEO Steve Jobs. He is, without doubt, the greatest "industrial designer" of the computer age. No one in the last 30 years has had anywhere near the kind of vision for "personal computers" that Jobs has had. Indeed, the ability to bring that vision off in such a dramatic fashion has been the hallmark of Jobs's entire career.

In my previous Advisor (see "Enterprise Semantics: Speed-Reading Your Enterprise Data Architecture, Part I," 11 August 2010), I explained that the skills needed for doing enterprise data architecture differed from data modeling or data warehousing. In addition, I pointed out that one of the most significant differences is that of scale.

If you want to be a leader, how successful you are will depend greatly on the culture where you work. "But wait," you might say. "Doesn't it matter more that you have the ability to lead? That you have the traits that make a leader?" Perhaps, but if the culture you work in doesn't allow you to practice those traits -- or worse still, discourages those traits -- they become irrelevant.

In my previous Advisor (see "Enterprise Semantics: Speed-Reading Your Enterprise Data Architecture, Part I," 11 August 2010), I explained that the skills needed for doing enterprise data architecture differed from data modeling or data warehousing.

An ever-increasing number of firms, both large and small, must deal with the challenges created by a distributed, virtualized workforce. This situation emerges for many reasons, such as the globalization of the firm's activities and points of presence, a mobilized sales force, the need to outsource various corporate functions, and the need for noncolocated teams to collaborate.

I've been checking out a new book, Lean Integration: An Integration Factory Approach to Business Agility.

You may think it obvious to the point of being trite to say that change is "not an option" or "the only constant is change" [1]. Yet, with churn in the global economy catching businesses off guard, and a slurry of such books as Subject to Change, Change by Design, and A Sense of Urgency [2], there's also a sense that change is not only imperative but something we need to become good at. We need to be not only reactive, adapting to a changing world, but proactive -- changing the world, before it changes us. Why?

IT is sort of caught in the middle of a debate. In one corner stands a group of researchers and enthusiasts who look at the marvels of how the human mind can make quick, accurate judgments and decisions. This group tends to look optimistically at the capabilities of the human mind to work effectively in the environment.

Lately, I’ve been curling up at night with a fascinating read. The 2009 Shift Index is from Deloitte’s Center for the Edge and written by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Land Davison.

In my last Advisor ("Understanding the Master Data Management Challenge," 4 August 2010), I discussed the demands of Master Data Management (MDM), particularly the difficulties of combining data from multiple sources.

In client consulting engagements, I frequently find that the root cause of a lot of frustration among managers, team members, and executives stems from the inability (or unwillingness) to choose what's most important. I had the interesting experience of trying to build a value-based priorities model with a client, and had the following exchange:

In my last Advisor ("Understanding the Master Data Management Challenge," 4 August 2010), I discussed the demands of Master Data Management (MDM), particularly the difficulties of combining data from multiple sources.

There's no lower-hanging fruit than thin fruit. The adoption of Web-enabled smartphones is outpacing just about every technology in history [1]. As form factors have improved, so has functionality. Lots of assumptions have been challenged along the way. For example, how many of us believed that no one would watch video on a one-inch-by-one-inch screen?

Use of data acquired from social media sites Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Yelp!, and LinkedIn by end-user organizations to support their BI and data warehousing efforts is quite limited. Moreover, it appears this will remain the case for the next 6-12 months or so.

I arrived in my hotel room last night quite tired after a long day giving a workshop on lean-agile for leadership and a presentation on a similar subject at a university. To relax, I turned on the TV and started watching a show hosted by Elvis Costello, who was interviewing Bono and Edge from the band U2.

Ever since the present financial meltdown began, there has been increasing concern about identifying and somehow preventing systemic risk in the global economy.

Often, when I'm called in to evaluate large, troubled projects, I find there are three groups of people involved: 1) a small group at the top who "think" that the project is in trouble, 2) a much larger bunch of people at the bottom who "know" that the project is in trouble, and 3) a bunch of middle managers who are trying to keep the people on the top from talking to the people on the bott

Every large enterprise has what I call "one huge accidentally distributed database"; i.e., thousands of individual database tables, files, spreadsheets, and document stores with the same data elements stored redundantly all over the place and multiple copies of that same data stored over and over again. All of this complexity takes time to get your brain around if you're a new enterprise data architect.

The complex relationship between IT and the business is a critical issue for any business process, especially when it comes to allocating funds to the related IT solution (e.g., a DSS for a strategic decision process; an e-commerce solution for a sales process). But the issue becomes particularly problematic when dealing with a training or learning process.

Every large enterprise has what I call "one huge accidentally distributed database"; i.e., thousands of individual database tables, files, spreadsheets, and document stores with the same data elements stored redundantly all over the place and multiple copies of that same data stored over and over again.

All change involves loss, and people are therefore often resistant to making changes. Even if the benefits of the change are huge and obvious, the process of change involves letting go of things that might be comfortable. If you buy a new car and trade in your old one, sure, the new car is better, more reliable, and nicer, but your old car was comfortable, familiar, and yours.

Egypt is a regional hub that links the Mediterranean, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. With a population of about 80 million, it is the largest country in the region.1 About 28% of its population is enrolled in school and university programs, 58% are under the age of 25, 19 million people make up its workforce, and around 5.7 million are working for the government sector.2 Egypt is witnessing its reincarnation into a modern, liberal, and private sector-led, market-driven economy.