As every software architect knows, it's dangerous to write off any computer technology. A new technology comes along and it seems certain that older technologies will die. Then, the older technology takes a new twist, and there it is again -- the latest "New Thing" that everyone is talking about.

Despite the sagging NASDAQ, things at a lot of dot-coms I have visited recently seem to humming happily, frantically along. There are countless meetings, never enough conference rooms, hurried conferences on the way to those meetings, and the really frantic are zipping by on those ubiquitous, obnoxious little scooters.

As I write, the IT-heavy NASDAQ staggers sluggishly near 2,500. After a riotous party that saw the index climb to more than 5,000, a stiff hangover is setting in. Its effect winds through the economy, a growing force that is not yet fully reckoned. Many IT employees, their savings plans brimming with company stock, are less wealthy than they were 10 months ago when they splurged on an upscale SUV.

The drawn-out disputes in Florida about the US presidential election have come to a close. Don't worry, this article is not a commentary on US democracy, nor a recommendation for electronic voting. Cutter Consortium Technology Council Fellow Ed Yourdon has already discussed that, asking, "Will election chaos lead to technology-based voting changes? ...

Have you ever been associated with a project where the execution was flawless, but yet you were unable to achieve the business objectives? I have -- as a member of a cross-functional project team, whose charter was to design an electronic business solution for a retailer with hundreds of stores across the Midwestern US.

A couple weeks ago, I received an intriguing e-mail from a total stranger in the northwestern US:

Business uncertainty, accentuated by the recent dot-com failures, seems to be having a paralyzing effect on businesses. The ambivalence between nurturing old business lines and heavy investment in new ones has led to a technological impasse in many organizations. In the name of uncertainty -- or unexpectedly magnified bottom-line deficiencies -- strategy implementations are being halted.

It's past the point at which one needs to describe component applications to prove the technology works or to prove the value of component reuse; most companies are convinced. The problem they are focused on is creating organizational structures to make it happen. Nevertheless, every so often I come across an implementation story that is so good that it's worth passing on.

In Part I of this Advisor (20 December 2000), we discussed the fundamental law of project failure: any project can fail.

Let's now explore the consequences of denying the law of project failure and examine how organizations might approach things differently if they acknowledged the possibility of failure.

Seemingly interminable meetings are often struggling in the "groan zone," Sam Kaner's wonderful term for the time period in which meeting participants are trying to understand each other.

IT has traditionally had three broad categories of functions: setting technical strategy directions for the company, building and supporting business applications, and assembling and supporting the company's technical infrastructure. Although each of these functions remains relevant and necessary, the concept that they are best performed by an internal IT organization is becoming demonstrably obsolete.

As I talk with people at companies that are working on large-scale e-business integration efforts, I'm told, over and over again, that integration is the key. If a company can't get its large, diverse legacy applications to talk to one another in an efficient manner, it can't hope to provide the kind of customer support that Web users want.

The other day, I broke a 12" x 12" x 1" pine board with my bare hand after listening to a 90-minute motivational talk about breaking barriers to achieve goals. As someone with martial arts training, I was less impressed with my own success than I was with the success of a 12-year-old in the group of parents and children.