Here are some questions we need to ask about stakeholder value. How can we determine the overall value of a system? How is this value related to the performance characteristics of the system? How can we engineer the value to meet stakeholder expectations? How can we test and measure the real value? Can we contract for system payment by value, or do we have to restrict ourselves to payment for performance levels? Is there any way to quantify the overall value of a system as a function of a set of system attributes?

Although practitioners from both camps still tend to view them as separate -- yet complementary -- in truth, business rules management (BRM) and business process management (BPM) technologies are becoming more and more intertwined. This is due to the fact that BRM technology aligns very well with process optimization -- in particular, for automating repeatable decisions as part of some process or business activity.

Evaluating an IT project once it is completed is one of those activities that everyone recognizes as necessary but few organizations approach methodically. Post-project fatigue and pressures to redeploy resources make retrospection into what went right or wrong seem like an expendable activity. Yet organizational learning in the effective application and use of IT requires that IT projects be evaluated for their effectiveness as well as their contribution to business value.

Any doubt about where the market for business intelligence (BI) and data management is heading was shattered by IBM's recent announcement that it is launching a company-wide initiative that will invest US $1 billion over the next three years to expand its information management software and services offerings.

The firm, as we have known it, is dying. A new one is emerging. The firm, as we will come to know it, is embedded in the ontology of service-oriented architecture (SOA). We stand today in the murky waters between these two states, and as is often the case, confusion confounds things. As we learned in school, the old firm rose with the birth of industrialism, was strengthened with the structures of modernism, and came to maturity with computing. We have grown comfortable with this genesis. But now, something is afoot inside us.

In recent years, application developers have pioneered techniques that enable them to work in an evolutionary (iterative and incremental) manner, and now we're going one step further with agile methods that are also highly collaborative. Unfortunately, many data professionals are still mired in the traditional, serial approaches of the late 1970s and 1980s. As a result, they're discovering that they need to play catch-up if they're to remain relevant within the new environment.

In my last Advisor (see "Service Component Architecture," 1 February 2006, I introduced the service component architecture (SCA), a new joint industry specification that decouples the implementation of services from their assembly of components. This week's Advisor is about a special type of component: the Service Data Object (SDO), which complements SCA by providing a common way to access different kinds of data.

In the beginning, patents and copyrights were created to encourage people to invest in new inventions, books, and plays that would create new economic opportunities. These patents and copyrights were extended for a limited period to provide the inventors/creators the opportunity to profit from their investment of time, money, and, most importantly, ingenuity.

One area that many EA programs struggle with is demonstrating the value that they bring to an enterprise. A useful way to address this challenge is to think of EA as a service organization; i.e., as providing a service to the enterprise and, in particular, to specific user groups (customers) within the enterprise. To start with this approach, we first identify who the customers are and what service is provided to them.

I'm sick to death of companies that claim they're strategic technology investors when they're actually technology cheap skates. We know from industry analyses that "strategic" technology investors spend around 7%-10% of their gross revenue on technology, while companies that are considered "tactical" investors spend 1%-3% of revenue on technology. (Those in the middle I guess are "operational" investors.)

Having attended the IT Architecture Practitioners Conference last week (23-25 January), held under the auspices of the Open Group, I cannot help thinking that after many years of effort, we are still a long way from a common understanding of what an architecture really is. What is more important is that this confusion certainly does not help IT architecture professionals to effectively communicate to business what an architecture is and why it is important.

Data integration vendor Informatica Corporation has acquired data quality tools vendor Similarity Systems in a cash-for-stock deal valued at approximately US $55 million. Informatica will integrate Similarity Systems' data quality technology within its PowerCenter data integration tools line.

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the loss of the shuttle Challenger. It also marks the 39th anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire that claimed astronauts Gus Grissom, Roger Chafee, and Ed White. It is also the third anniversary of the loss of the shuttle Columbia. The last week of January is always a bit sad at NASA.