The execution of digital strategy depends on a strong IT architecture and design. The architecture should also consider the existing application, infrastructure, and processes. The roadmap for successful execution should focus on technology enablers that underpin successful digitization.

Roadmaps have two key functions in strategy planning. The first is to outline planned architectural changes that will deliver the required strategies; the second is to outline alternative ways to achieve the same results.

Thinking in terms of digital business capabilities helps focus on things that need to be done to achieve expected business results.

I have been a member of the “gig” economy for the last 20 years — I just didn’t know it.

It is the enterprise architects’ responsibility to successfully implement and grow big data technology adoption. The real challenge, from my experience, lies in managing the various stakeholders involved and onboarding them successfully onto the big data transformation journey.

Just as recent global events have given us reason to pause and reflect, the pace of technology emergence and disruption is proving to be a source of inspiration and uncertainty. Transitioning to a digital world is front-of-mind for many business executives, yet finding the right path is an ongoing challenge. So we asked Cutter’s team of experts for their insights on some of the technologies, trends, and strategies that will be relevant in 2017 and beyond. In typical Cutter Business Technology Journal fashion, our call produced a wide range of opinions and reflections worthy of consideration as you chart your business technology journey for the new year.

Human communication is based on natural language. Teaching computers to understand natural language is obviously a requirement, but our communication uses more than just voice (speech). An important part of human communication is our ability to see and understand what we see. Providing visual recognition capabilities to machines is the next big step in teaching them to understand a person when they speak.

Japan is placing considerable emphasis on the use of AI applications and it will prove an interesting source of new information on upcoming developments in the application of cognitive technology.

Ask any developer and they’ll tell you that they waste most of their time debugging or adding features to code after it is initially written. Many systems have been hacked up so much that fixing one bug can sprout several more and what should take a few hours to fix ends up taking days, or even weeks. But with test-first development, developers find many errors before they can become bugs. Tests instantly catch errors and problems, not only in the current module but also against the whole system. This helps developers write software that is compatible across the whole system.

An architectural risk assessment is not a penetration test or merely a vulnerability scan. It is an engineering process with the aim of understanding, defining, and defending all the functional output from customers, line workers, corporate staff, and client-server interactions. Performed correctly, it will empower the technology staff and enable the business to focus less on security and more on customers.

By understanding the intent of human language, a cognitive system can correlate a user’s question with other sources of data to put it into context for a specific situation.

As 2017 gets underway, I want to comment on a technology I see as poised for a breakout year: cognitive computing. We are now seeing a considerable amount of innovation in the development and application of cognitive computing across almost every industry. As a result, we recommend that companies start examining how they can benefit from applying cognitive computing in their organizations.

A Lean management system encourages those closest to the customer, those who best understand the work, to own their processes, solve their problems, and make their own improvements and innovations, guided by the strategic priorities of the overall organization.

The societal effects of AI-driven automation and the like are just beginning to be felt in earnest. The one thing that seems to be certain: over the next decades, companies and countries should be preparing for more political risk and uncertainty, and revamp their enterprise risk management approaches accordingly.

With EA, organization leaders can more readily improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and responsiveness of their enterprise. Effective EA is the key to enabling the enterprise to address orders-of-magnitude increases in complexity and orders-of-magnitude increases in the rate of change.

In the history of NoSQL data, there have been many approaches to solving the problem of performing analytics on it. Not all of these approaches are able to solve all problems in NoSQL analytics — they vary greatly in their expressiveness and flexibility.

This Advisor looks at how crowds can be used to organize, evaluate, and filter large information spaces. Specifically, let’s look at the way crowds have been leveraged to “make sense of” large product ranges, huge media databases, and the Web itself.

There is significant potential value for companies of all sizes in reviewing their potential financial vulnerability in the case of a cyberattack, as well as determining whether purchasing (or increasing their) cyber insurance could provide the protection to keep them in business.

Business architecture provides a holistic business perspective of a business ecosystem based on a clearly defined, time-tested framework. Core business architecture domains include capabilities, value streams, information, and organization. The extended view of business architecture includes strategies and policies that drive actions and investments, external and internal stakeholders that receive and participate in value delivery, the products and services a business delivers, the initiatives in which a business invests, and the metrics that enable business performance management.

As a manager and a leader it's imperative for you to develop good habits, systems, and strategies around time management, both for your own effectiveness and for the benefit of the people you lead.

According to our research, current adoption of data breach protection insurance is fairly limited. This is somewhat surprising, as I had expected usage to be considerably higher due to the many high-profile data breaches appearing in the news.

Here are the Agile Product Management & Software Engineering Excellence articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members and clients in 2016. Look for these lists from each of our four practice areas, and rediscover Cutter's most intriguing articles of the year!

As has been our tradition for the last several years, we've compiled the five most intriguing articles published by the Business Technology & Digital Transformation Strategies practice this year for today's Advisor. How did we come up with this list? We chose the articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members and clients and those that created controversy among Cutter Senior Consultants and Fellows.

As has been our tradition for the last several years, we've compiled the five most intriguing articles published by the Cutter IT Journal this year for today's Advisor. How did we come up with this list? We chose the articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members and clients and those that created controversy among Cutter Senior Consultants and Fellows. Your questions and comments don't only make it possible to create lists like this — they help focus Cutter's Senior Consultants' research on the areas that are most important to organizations like yours.

As has been our tradition for the last several years, we've compiled the five most intriguing articles published by the Business & Enterprise Architecture practice for today's Advisor. How did we come up with this list? We chose the articles that garnered the most feedback from Cutter Members. Your questions and comments not only make it possible to create lists like this, they help focus Cutter's Senior Consultants' research on the areas that are most important to organizations like yours. So please keep your feedback coming.