IT affects the environment in several different ways. In terms of the computer, each stage of its life -- from manufacture to use to disposal -- presents environmental problems. For instance, the typical manufacturing process for a PC requires two tons of raw materials and lot of water and generates 25 tons of carbon dioxide [3].

At first glance, the title might not sound especially sexy: Architecture and Patterns for IT Service Management, Resource Planning, and Governance: Making Shoes for the Cobbler's Children, by Charles T. Betz.

Last month we began this three-part series on a Cutter survey on IT budget and costing practices (see "IT Budgeting/Costing Is a Mess -- and Hinders IT Governance, Part 1," 26 September 2007; for more on Cutter's survey, see the Cutter Benchmark Review, August 2007). The results indicated that IT budgeting and costing practices, generally, are a mess.

In our most recent survey on outsourcing (see "Outsourcing Insights Redux: Part I -- Truths and Perceptions"), we asked respondents how they evaluate supplier project estimates on applications development and maintenance projects.

First I must share a bias. To be effective, IT departments must be no more than half a step ahead of the business partners it supports. If IT has the temerity to be more than this elusive half step, it will be accused of arrogance and be seen as disconnected or following its own agenda. If IT is seen to be lagging the business, the fate is equally unpalatable.

There's a "new" data warehousing database vendor that deserves a closer look: ParAccel, Inc. ParAccel has developed a high-speed, columnar database -- utilizing a massively parallel (shared-nothing) grid architecture running on standard hardware -- that is optimized for data warehousing, BI reporting, and operational analytic processing.

The world is moving at a fast pace, and globalization is increasing. Financial markets are interlocked and the role of information becomes more important with each passing day.

collaboration = innovation

Declare trust? Come on, get serious! I can't declare that you'll be trustworthy. You have to show me that.

True. And before I can show you that, you have to show me that you can be trusted with my trust. And so on, and on.

For people to take action -- such as to move to a new software development methodology, they have to care. Feelings inspire people to act. We make people care by appealing to things that matter to them.

The analysis of the enterprise business cycles is an important step in EA efforts. However, to find gaps and future directions for an enterprise IT architecture, we introduce another concept, which we call enterprise architecture capabilities. We use them instead of specific information systems functions to point out the relationship of IT logical architecture to business architecture, described as a set of business cycles and business capabilities.

I came across a saying the other day at one of my favorite Web sites, www.despair.com, that is particularly applicable to IT: "You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor."

Someone recently asked me to distill my thoughts on strategy down to the bare minimum. I pondered this request for a few moments and then answered:

Strategy is what we use to do more smart stuff and do less stupid stuff.

A few tenets of faith on risk management:

Risk management is a comprehensive evaluation of what may or may not go right within an organization, and a series of actions related to that evaluation.

Risk management is the challenge of establishing a common vision of when and how an organization should react and respond.

A couple weeks ago, I discussed the significance of SAP AG's acquisition of BI vendor Business Objects SA (see "SAP Buys Business Objects, Or Keeping Up with the Jones II," 16 October 2007). Last week, SAP made another acquisition: YASU Technologies.

I have to begin this piece by admitting that I have tremendous admiration for Steve Jobs. Jobs is probably one of the most creative people in electronic product development today. He has proved this creativity multiple times in multiple incarnations. Not only did Jobs put Apple computing on the map in the 1970s and 1980s, he made windows, mice, and object-oriented design popular.

This is the last of a trilogy of Advisors on tools in agile development.

An IT project orientation to risk blindsides organizations to business risks when achieving strategic goals like revenue generation largely depends upon the successful design, execution, and management of technology. Responsible risk analysis cannot end when the technology project supporting strategic goals is completed. Some technology requires persistent business risk analysis. eBay's recent experience is instructive.

CIOs are responsible for managing many different aspects of IT, ranging from providing IT services, to controlling costs, and aligning IT with the business. One of the most powerful tools that a CIO has to help with this is enterprise architecture (EA). Yet, EA is often misunderstood, misapplied, or simply not present in many IT organizations.

IT work is frequently intense knowledge work that requires years of dedicated study and hard work to master. How well IT organizations can build and keep teams of expert IT workers together can make or break the IT organization and, depending on the context, the entire business. One can draw a short line between business strategy and IT skill development.

Many outsourcing arrangements today describe themselves as following a staff augmentation model, as opposed to a transition of IT staff to a supplier organization, which occurred more frequently in the early years of outsourcing.

I believe that there are some very basic things that systems engineers should learn. In the first installment of this Advisor series (see "Undergraduate Basics for Systems Engineering, Part 1: Principles," 3 October 2007), I discussed the first of these fundamental lessons: principles (heuristics, laws).

The business community concluded at some point that the words "employees," "workforce," and "personnel" were inadequate in describing workers' influence in shaping enterprise success. So a phrase was introduced into the lexicon of business and industry that more appropriately acknowledges the newfound importance of labor: "human capital."

The majority of organizations currently using on-demand BI and data warehousing solutions are generally satisfied with the results.

The increasing focus on analytics-based competition has reinvigorated the debate about the potential economic value of data. The debate, however, has narrowly focused on the use of data, rather than on the process of its generation.

While agile practices improve the odds of success in many situations, neither agile practices nor any others are silver bullets. There are situations in which projects will fail, regardless of methodology. For example, one of the Agile Manifesto principles is that people are more important than process.