This Advisor describes what an organization needs to develop and implement the organizational skills and capabilities associated with big data.

To incorporate a software delivery capability, your team should thrive on adopting new technology, practices, and processes. There are three primary ways companies can do this effectively, as we explore in this Advisor.

Organizations are interested in adopting several technologies to support their customer experience initiatives. This Advisor considers two specific areas: personalization and omnichannel customer engagement and marketing platforms.

Similar to the semantics of user stories, which always express change, it is beneficial to describe architecture as a series of changes — structural changes through time. The smaller the gap between the architecture representation of the architecture and its realization, both in expressiveness and timing, the more relevant the architectural changes.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) has vulnerabilities that can create serious consequences for lives and property. In this Advisor, we investigate AI’s vulnerabilities, examining where problems can occur in development and application.

In this Advisor, we discuss the social and emotional cognitive aspects of proj­ects.

While the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) are incredibly useful and offer business and government the opportunity to solve knotty problems, a common question is, “Does this capability pose threats to humans?” Are the sci-fi scenarios of malevolent robots or killer software pro­grams a real concern?

In order to implement continuous integration and testing concepts, consider the seven Agile approaches presented in this Advisor.

The emerging nature of smart automation technologies requires a holistic architecture-centric design. The business must address design considerations such as trust, transparency, security, and bias to create successful smart automation. In this Advisor, we explore efficiency and continuous learning considerations as well as compliance issues associated with the use of smart automation technologies.

The ultimate success of artificial intelligence (AI) will depend on how well society is prepared for its widespread application. This, of course, raises a slew of social, economic, legal, privacy, and ethical issues and challenges that must be seriously studied and addressed.

Sustainability means bringing new functionality to the market while keeping your underlying software assets healthy and nimble. To achieve such balance requires a form of data-driven design and decision making that balances commercial and technical con­siderations. In this Advisor, we review what is needed in terms of data, design, and decisions.

In this Advisor, we discuss several steps senior leaders and managers need to take to avoid the curse of ignoring the need for transformation that afflicted incumbents like Borders and Blockbuster.

Cognitive computing provides the underlying “engine” that, when coupled with the business knowledgebase, serves as the technology enabler behind the evolution of the cognitive enterprise.

When an organization decides to structure the teams that look after its digital products and platforms into feature teams, the technology stack must closely follow that structure. Most organizations, however, do not structure their technology stacks in this way, and the challenges that we observe today when trying to make changes at speed are usually attributable to that misalignment.

In this Advisor, we introduce the potential ethical issues in Industry 4.0 and look at these from two aspects: (1) ethical issues related to data and (2) ethical issues related to systems, technology products, and services.

Most organizations will start with a shell of an IRP and then start filling in the operational details. Typically, this effort begins with a security incident where the response goes horribly wrong. In this Advisor, we describe some of the task areas that add the most value to an organization.

The IT skills shortage has been around long enough for some to have proposed solutions. Will these ideas work for Industry 4.0? In this Advisor, we explore some past approaches to the skills crisis and see if we can glean any lessons from them.

The most sought-after technologies that surveyed organizations are interested in adopting to support their CX initiatives are customer analytics and customer behavioral modeling. Our research also finds considerable interest from responding organizations in using personalization to target content and promotions by audience.

The cognitive enterprise offers a business-driven vision for organizations where technology is merely a means to an end. This Advisor explores some common scenarios that manifest within a cognitive enterprise.

Currently, organizational interest in adopting game design and gaming techniques to support customer experience (CX) initiatives is limited; however, the concepts are quite applicable to CX practices.

While the world is enjoying the benefits of the fourth industrial revolution, the risks to businesses from cyber threats are increasing in both sophistication and frequency. What can business leaders do to strengthen their resilience to cyber threats? Leaders must first recognize that the risks in the digital space present as real a threat to the success of the business as do the more familiar risks in the physical world. To build effective digital resilience, leaders must adopt a C-suite response, embracing both robust technology and organizational culture approaches.

The right team is key to crafting software systems capable of supporting innovation. Software delivery talent, however, is extremely difficult to find for a multitude of reasons, which we explore in this Advisor.

This issue of CBTJ looks at three previous AI "waves" and helps us to get up to speed with the current state of AI and to think about some of the issues raised when we look beyond systems that appear to work as intended. 

Given the distributed nature and the potential uncertainty of the elements contained in any blockchain event, validation is an essential component. In this Advisor, we discuss how blockchain could improve trust in, and dependability of, the business process under automation.

In this Advisor, we examine the three conventional essential security requirements — confidentiality, integrity, and availability — which present somewhat different issues in the age of Industry 4.0.