Despite several alternatives, most end-user organizations currently choose to develop their business performance management applications themselves. This trend is subject to change, however, because many organizations that are planning to implement performance management applications are still undecided as to how they will do so. Market conditions are changing as well.

As agile development becomes more popular and established, it runs the risk of maturing into a rigid, codified system that, of course, would be just the opposite of the agility we cherish. In my experience, management gravitates toward established, predictable, repeatable processes for good reason: they make management's job easier. To an extent, agilists encourage this increasing codification of agile development by writing an endless stream of books describing just how agile "should" be done.

"There was not a culture of excessive risk-taking," or so said Christian Noyer, the current governor of the Bank of France when asked about the problems of the "rogue" trading activities of Jérôme Kerviel at the French bank Société Générale SA (SocGen).

But is Noyer correct?

The big change from the last century to the one we find ourselves in today is the locus of computing and communications technology and the way we're destined to use this technology.

Practically all companies have some form of priorities for IT investments. Often this is an informal process involving the CIO and other CxO executives. Sometimes the process is much more formal, involving a steering committee and a structured project assessment process. Sometimes ROI computations are at the core of the process; more often, some kind of project scoring process that includes strategy and risk as well as financial return is used.

Modeling is stock in trade for architects. We use modeling for a variety of different purposes: to help analyze problems, to conceptualize solutions, to formalize specifications, and to communicate concepts and solutions, just to name a few. So how do we know if the model is successful, correct, or complete? Here are a few basic rules about models and modeling to guide you.

Outsourcing continues to occupy the thoughts of IT managers, according to those surveyed for the January 2008 issue of the Cutter Benchmark Review . Last year, we found that 48% of respondents had or were planning to outsource work. That number has jumped to 55% this year. Outsourcing seems to be the way companies are going to manage not only short-term labor costs, but also longer-term costs associated with retirement and healthcare.

In last week's Advisor (see "Resolving the Challenges of Building a Collaborative Enterprise, Part 2," 20 February 2008), I described some of the common challenges companies encounter in their pursuits of collaboration.

Watching flight attendants doing service on a short-distance flight, you can learn a good lesson about global process optimization. There is just enough space in the aisle for a single trolley; overtaking is impossible. In most cases, the first attendant starts his service in row one and then services the rows consecutively.

Organizations should now view business performance management as a strategic initiative that is essential for monitoring, measuring, and optimizing corporate performance. Organizations that fail to take this view risk being outperformed by more nimble competitors that do.

As more organizations face transitions to agile methods and those transitions involve larger segments of those organizations, the need for transition or transformation strategies increases.

In 1943, a very important building was built on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, that became something of a celebrity in its own right. For one thing, like many WWII-era buildings, Building 20 was a "temporary" structure. And like many temporary structures, it outlived its original planning horizon.

collaboration = innovation

I've been a big proponent of business process intelligence (which some call "process performance intelligence" or "process performance management") -- the ability to monitor the efficiency of distributed business processes in near real time -- ever since I was first shown the technology back in 2005.

In this Advisor, I pick up on our conversation on the "Experience Analysis and Design" (EAD) methodology (see "EAD: The Architecture of the Customer Experience, Part 1," 2 January 2008, and "EAD: The Architecture of the Customer Experience, Part 2," 2

For many years, companies of all sizes have been directing their efforts to building collaborative enterprises to reduce the cost of operations, improve customer satisfaction, and enhance competitive edge or to comply with industry standards, policies, and regulations.

Giving advice about the importance of teamwork is right up there with talking about the virtues of mom and apple pie. Yet, considering that 66% of development teams choose to work around their corporate data groups, clearly this isn't happening. It's no good having the best architecture in the world if the development teams aren't interested in it.

Approximately 19% of end-user organizations' business performance management applications currently provide proactive alerting and event notification capabilities. However, indications are that use of such facilities is expected to increase as organizations progress with their business performance management efforts.

Watching flight attendants doing service on a short-distance flight, you can learn a good lesson about global process optimization. There is just enough space in the aisle for a single trolley; overtaking is impossible. In most cases, the first attendant starts his service in row one and then services the rows consecutively.

Do not multiply entities beyond necessity.

-- William of Occam

With the release of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) version 3, the best-practices framework leaves behind an exclusive focus on quality IT processes aligning with business for an emphasis on process excellence delivering high-value services to customers. The change is subtle but speaks volumes (five, actually) about the risk-mitigation possibilities within it.

I received a lot of feedback from my 28 November 2007 Advisor, "Governance from Day Three" -- most of it positive. It seems that governance is generally thought of as a dirty word. I also got some differing views, however, many with some valid points.

Assumptions => Contingencies

Business continuity management (BCM) is no longer a luxury but an essential element of an organization's risk-management program. For an organization to have any hope of survival, the BCM process must embrace risk, emergency, and recovery planning in order to manage a "crisis" or "disaster" event. Undertaking any business continuity activity should form part of a wider planning structure; it is not an end in itself but a means to an end.

IT project dashboards provide senior management with a top-down view of their organization -- allowing them to see a high-level, up-to-date status and drill down to the details that might concern them. Like any interface, the dashboard can obscure as much as it illuminates. Moreover, the assumptions used in its construction and maintenance will color the conclusions one draws from it and bear critically on its strategic utility.