There are many things that make projects and teams successful, but capability and commitment are two that I find especially important -- I call them the two Cs of success. For true success, you need both of these from all your team members! Let me explain through an example.

Last week, I attended the "Creating the Real-Time Enterprise" conference in San Francisco, California, USA. This new conference, hosted by DCI, covers a range of issues confronting any organization that is contemplating moving to "real time."

Last week (" AI in Bahrain," 4 December 2002), I talked about the draw achieved by a commercial chess program, Deep Fritz, against world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik in Bahrain and concluded that AI techniques are getting more powerful and easier to deploy. This week, I want to reinforce that point with a concrete business example.

The data from a recent Cutter Consortium study reveals that 55% of companies have modified their security processes since September 11.

Figure 1 -- Has your organization deployed an enterprise-wide security administration application since September 11?

Every so often, I'm reminded that I started writing about computing in the early 1980s and wrote primarily about artificial intelligence through most of that decade. Usually I think of it because I read of some new achievement by an AI system. In this case, I noticed that the current world champion chess master, Vladimir Kramnik, just achieved a draw with Deep Fritz, the current reigning chess program.

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, everyone has become more conscious of security issues. At the same time, everyone has become more fearful. The US government, for example, is issuing regular announcements of terrorist threats. And, among the many threats that have been described in detail, in the press and government briefings, are the threats of attacks on computing systems.

Recent revelations of abuse by supposedly world-class practitioners on Wall Street and at companies like Enron underscore the importance of a realistic approach to risk management.

Whenever practitioners misuse and abuse the risk management discipline, they contribute to what risk management expert and Cutter Consortium Fellow Robert N. Charette calls the "risk management misery scenario" -- a future in which managing risk is perpetually under fire and discounted as an effective management tool.