The term “DEI” (diversity, equity, inclusion) is currently trending across the business world but is frequently and increasingly misused. In this Advisor, we break down each concept into simple language that can help your company "walk the talk" when it comes to organizational transformation.

DEI problems are created by offensive and archaic attitudes that persist in the workplace. As explored in this Advisor, organizations can advance DEI by removing their institutional structural barriers and by using inclusive language to help create an equitable workplace.

Increasingly, organizations are adopting a decentralized approach to R&D, carrying out a significant amount of activity within the business units. This Advisor explores the challenge of gaining R&D insight, from project management systems that don't fit the bill, to the need for better system configuration.

Good data is honestly and ethically sourced, fully contextualized, reliable, resilient, widely available, and well-understood. How can this be achieved? Contemplating these characteristics, we are led directly to principles and programs for data/information governance, ethics, and the organizational structures needed to support and drive their success. This Advisor explores the path forward to good data.

How are today's organizations adopting and deploying emerging technologies? Research suggests that companies have abandoned their obsession with “requirements” and — however quietly — appear to instead endorse a “technology-first/requirements-second” approach to technology adoption.

As work and teams strive to be more agile, team diversity boosts resilience by allowing the team to adapt to new missions and changing situations more easily.

Organizations can utilize business architecture to inform and shape software designs to achieve more stable, maintainable, and scalable software systems. This Advisor examines the root cause of ineffective software design, specifically, the lack of consistency and clarity of the business perspectives being used as input to software design efforts.

Precision agriculture is a set of farming management practices that produces higher yields through more efficient use of critical resources such as land and water, as well as lowered consumption of fossil fuels, fertilizers, and pesticides. This Advisor explores how drone technology enables these practices.

Neural networks and other ML model development typically use large amounts of data for training and testing purposes. Because much of this data is historical, there is the risk that the AI models could learn existing prejudices pertaining to gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and other biases. This Advisor explores how the Data & Trust Alliance consortium created an initiative to help end-user organizations evaluate vendors offering AI-based solutions according to their ability to detect, mitigate, and monitor algorithmic bias over the lifecycle of their products.

Project success is evaluated by the degree to which an end goal is achieved. Having a vivid understanding of the result, its impact, and the potential impediments to success can help improve a project. This Advisor explores the three beginning stages of a technology proj­ect and their keys to success: define, assess, and plan. Each stage has its own characteristics that need examination.

Learn how a logistical mindset transforms project think­ing from focusing on avoiding failure to concentrating on achieving success.

As we explore in this Advisor, there are tangible benefits to basing corporate purpose on sustainability drivers, and sustainable business models are gaining pace. Therefore, businesses should rethink their role in the context in which they operate and adapt their strategy, organization, resources, processes, and culture accordingly.

Communications-platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) products offer quick and easy ways for businesses to build features that allow them to communicate with their customers safely and reliably. This Advisor explores key CPaaS use cases and identifies three desirable benefits of CPaaS.

As we explore in this Advisor, new Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for healthcare are smarter and, more importantly, tailored to the needs and requirements of healthcare organizations. With 5G being rolled out, now is the time for healthcare providers to set their IoT roadmaps.

An often-overlooked aspect in the global discussion about sustainability when it comes to information and communications technology is how software can be created and deployed to mitigate a company’s environmental footprint. This Advisor looks at Mobile and Web apps to see what we can do to create a more positive environmental impact.

We encounter AI in our daily lives with services such as Netflix and Amazon using AI and predictive technology to analyze billions of records to suggest films, books, and other items we might like based on our previous reactions and choices and those of others like us. But the potential of AI goes far beyond entertainment and shopping services.

The ability to monitor and authenticate is crucial for providing credibility to many sustainability efforts. The use of technology (e.g., blockchain, satellite imagery) to monitor and verify activities provides a method of ensuring accountability for actions, both good and bad. This issue of Cutter Business Technology Journal explores the ways technology can be used to monitor and improve the sustainability of a wide range of processes, industrial and otherwise.

How powerful are today’s artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, and which areas are showing the most promise? This Advisor explores how AI can help the environment through the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the enormous potential for AI in patient care, and provides additional examples of how AI is impacting everyday life.

Cloud-based carbon intelligence platforms can help companies track, measure, and model their CO2 emissions — including providing the ability to integrate and analyze carbon emissions data acquired from across their supply chains — and chart the progress of their overall sustainability initiatives. This Advisor explores some of the new products on the market utilizing distributed ledger technologies to support carbon intelligence platforms.

Speed, productivity, quality, and engagement — the benefits of Agile — are vital to your business. Business leaders across industries strive to cultivate these essential qualities on a day-to-day basis. The sheer volume of podcasts, books, seminars, and articles centering on these elements indicate an impressive collective interest in becoming Agile. However, many leaders are slow to start the Agile journey — at least right now.

Explore the unintended consequences, such as erosion of human skills and the scope expansion that takes us from reconnecting with old friends online to channels that broadcast un-fact-checked news, that AI can bring. In this Advisor, Paul Clermont offers no-nonsense advice for dealing with these issues.

For a KRI framework to be successful, it is vital that KRIs are well selected so they can support the business and its objectives within the risk appetite. This Advisor explores some of the means by which KRIs can be established.

There is no better way to socialize and gain traction with business architecture than to deliver results using it. This Advisor explores best practices, tips, and hacks for establishing and socializing business architecture, ensuring it is appreciated and embedded within the fabric of the organization.

As artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) gain attention for their potential to tackle the environmental challenges posed by climate change, their requirement of heterogeneous data takes center stage. This Advisor addresses the fact that while heterogeneous data plays a critical role in the use of AI and ML to combat climate change, there is a dual side that is not environmentally friendly.

The pressure on telecom companies’ cash flow has never been so intense. Now more than ever, it has become imperative to unlock value through asset reconfiguration in order to finance growth and transformation via 5G and diversification.