An encouraging trend over the past several years has been the addition of IT-savvy directors to corporate boards. As shown in a 2004 analysis by public relations company Burson-Marsteller, after a corporation hires an IT-experienced director, the corporation experiences an average increase in its annual return of 6.4%. The reason appears to be that IT-knowledgeable directors are able to:

By some estimates, the amount of data generated each year is growing by as much as 40% to 60% for many organizations. Rapidly emerging technologies such as Auto-ID and the Electronic Product Code (EPC), combined with interactive sensor networks, will create even larger data streams of greater complexity. All indications are that the pace of data generation is accelerating.

A reader wrote to me this week to inquire about data profiling and auditing tools. And lately, I've noticed an increasing interest in data profiling in the media. Consequently, I decided to make data profiling and auditing tools the topic of this week's Advisor.

[Excerpted from an article titled "Understanding the Roots of Process Performance Failure," originally published in CrossTalk and authored by Robert Charette, Laura Dwinnell, and John McGarry.]

That businesses want IT investments to be firmly rooted in business strategy is a given. And there is plentiful advice available on how to align investments with strategies. But what new IT investments to consider? How are the potential investments identified and validated?

That businesses want IT investments to be firmly rooted in business strategy is a given. And there is plentiful advice available on how to align investments with strategies. But what new IT investments to consider? How are the potential investments identified and validated?

A survey Cutter Consortium conducted in November 2004 of 110 end-user organizations based worldwide reveals that companies are struggling to sufficiently plan for the end-user training requirements of their business performance management applications.

Agile is becoming more widely accepted. Over the past six months, a number of large organizations have contacted me for help implementing Scrum within their enterprise. This has led me to ponder what a top-down implementation might look like.