As we all know, achieving IT and business alignment is not easy. We must tie business strategy, technology, and people into a comprehensive and synergistic package that, as Paul Strassmann says, will demonstrate a positive relationship between IT and accepted financial measures of performance. As my mother used to say, though, be careful for what you wish for, because you might get it.

Last week, a group of computer scientists announced that they have created the world's third-fastest supercomputer from 1,000 Apple PCs for a mere US $3 million. Now, to some folks, that may seem like a lot of money, but when you consider that the fastest computer cost about $150 million and the second-fastest cost $10-$15 million, three big ones is not very expensive.

Most formal system development methodologies are focused on successful development and implementation of IT systems. Very few, if any, address the issue of how to discontinue failing or failed IT projects! It is almost as if the IT community considers it sacrilegious to acknowledge, let alone terminate, a failed or failing project.

Overburdened IT organizations are seeking outsourcing relationships to gain agility; they view it as a way to access staff skills and capabilities that might take more time to grow organically from within. Sometimes these skills are seen to be available at low cost as well, as suggested by the wave of offshore outsourcing to providers in countries like India.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health has implemented a data warehouse and accompanying business intelligence (BI) system designed to help public health personnel more effectively detect, track, and respond to disease outbreaks and bioterrorism attacks.

Using objective metrics puts IT executives in an excellent position to succeed when outsourcing IT projects. At the project level, the executive managing the request for proposal (RFP) process can use metrics to empower negotiations by:

"Trends in Risk Management." That was one of the topics of a lively discussion following Cutter Business Technology Council Fellows Tim Lister and Tom DeMarco's keynote on risk management at the sellout Cutter Summit 2003 conference.

Clearly, the US economy is beginning to gain momentum after about 18 months of very slow growth. Companies are reporting profits and buying new inventory, and consumers are increasing their spending. The recovery has taken a while, but it now seems to be fully underway -- or is it? The growth in jobs is picking up, but at a slower rate than normal for such a period.