Both the Lean and Agile worlds encourage and value learning by doing. The Scrum framework pushes teams to engage in an ongoing PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle to continually inspect and adapt how they work and how they develop software.

For Scrum teams, the end-of-sprint review is where they inspect the increment of work they created during the iteration and examine what they have learned about their deliverables. Based on this knowledge, teams can review their upcoming backlog items and adjust when they feel it is necessary.

One of my first tasks upon joining the EA team at Syngenta, a multinational agribusiness company, was to redefine the global architecture governance processes. Among my first tasks after joining the EA team at Syngenta was to redefine the architecture review board (ARB), a need that was triggered by a review of our enterprise architecture program.

Digital technologies have become an essential part of our business environment, and of our personal lives. In 60 years or so, they have gone through an incredible journey: from simple automation of the back offices to supporting almost every aspect of the modern organization; to our homes and living rooms; to our personal use of mobile devices; to part of what we wear (clocks, glasses, bands, etc.); and, as it seems, they will become part of our bodies in the future.

The distinctive features of cloud computing offer many potential opportunities for business innovation, particularly given its service (and service quality) focus, coupled with the flexibility that new technology delivery mechanisms provide. However, our most recent research finds good reasons for qualifying the assumption of frictionless innovation arising from cloud adoption. The pattern, instead, may well follow past diffusions of other potentially powerful technological innovations, including the Internet itself.

Back in 1887, Mark Twain noted that, "All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure." We've recently had two primary examples of senior organizational management who seem to be following Twain's advice with extra zeal.

Traditional computer networks are complex and very hard to manage (see "Unraveling the Complexity of Network Management"). To express the desired policies, network operators need to configure each individual network device, one by one, either manually or with the use of low-level scripts. In addition to configuration complexity, network environments have to endure the dynamics of faults and adapt to load changes. Enforcing the required policies in such a dynamic environment is highly challenging.

There are many purposes and potential opportunities based on an architectural view of the enterprise. One that may not be readily apparent is the use of a rigorous and holistic understanding of business to detect health issues for the enterprise itself.

[From the Editor: This week's Cutter IT Advisor is from authors Jim Benson's and Tonianne DeMaria Barry's introduction to the June 2015 issue of Cutter IT Journal, "Practical Management: Lean and Beyond" (Vol. 28, No. 6). Learn more about Cutter IT Journal.]

Predictive maintenance is becoming one of the more killer applications to arise out of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet movements. We are now seeing companies ramp up their efforts to develop machine analytics with the intent of increasing equipment availability, lowering production costs, and enhancing their customer relationship and loyalty efforts.

In our recent workshop on the integrative framework, we emphasized that one cannot apply a single software method to all kinds of software efforts. For example, trying to develop a whole new software platform with the same process one uses to fix production bugs is a path to failure. Likewise, performance measures that are appropriate for staying on top of an input stream of production bugs differ greatly from those needed for the development of a brand new platform. Hence, to successfully manage your overall project portfolio you need to mix and match various practices and measures.

I spent 20 years in the military, and one of the greatest lessons I learned was that you can't hold someone responsible for performing a task if you haven't trained them how to perform it.

At a conference in Monaco, James Dow, VP Global Engineering at Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) stated that the banking sector now regards technology companies as serious competitors in the finance industry. Dow further pointed out that several US technology companies were each in a position to purchase the entire shareholding of multiple major banks in all-cash transactions.

What is true with financial models is even truer with enterprise models that are even more abstract and expansive in their scope. The point is that it is all too easy to create poorly thought-out models that shine radiantly as PowerPoint slides, Visio diagrams, and financial spreadsheets, but which mislead. It takes time and a labor of love to design views that are less about emotional appeal and aesthetics than they are about representing truths that are sometimes ugly, but always revealing.

The Internet of Things (IoT) promises companies many benefits from connecting products and services. But once you start examining the requirements of the connected device ecosystem, it soon becomes apparent that implementing and managing IoT products and their supporting infrastructure is a complex undertaking.

I'm afraid that some of the superficial approaches to "Agile" and "lightweight methods" have put design, planning, and software tools in a bad light.

Scrum is not about planning! It is also not about story points nor sprint commitment nor backlog grooming. Scrum is about delivery in the first place, and about learning in the second.

Measurement is not a new concept. We deal with measurement in some form or another in our daily lives. When talking about metrics for business processes, we can sum up the concept with this well-known statement: "You cannot manage what you cannot measure. And you cannot improve something that you cannot manage properly."

We are regularly asked about the likely timing and impact of SMAC (social, mobile, analytics, and cloud) technologies on IT outsourcing. Taking a broad view, we predict that SMAC, in combination with advanced robotics, the Internet of Things, and the automation of knowledge work, will lead to organizations becoming fundamentally digital operations as cloud corporations by 2025. How do these developments affect outsourcing over the next five years? Will these disruptive technologies change outsourcing as we know it?

Privacy is about to collide with big data. We are seeing some of the opening moves in different areas across the globe. In Europe, Google Maps has been criticized for portraying unauthorized images of people in street views. More recently in the US, we have seen the collapse of talks about use of facial recognition, where privacy advocate groups walked out of regulatory discussions because companies refused to acknowledge a need for prior permission if images were to be used for this purpose.

While all the trappings of my hometown are largely still there -- the park, the DQ, the cinema on the square -- none of them are run the same way or operate the way they did when I was young. As our enterprises flourish, we need to realize that there are inherently some operational aspects that will neither require nor get our personal touch. It doesn't mean they aren't functioning. It means that they are functioning without our oversight. As such, they will evolve organically to some degree.

We work in business environments where the focus is often mainly on quickly achieving results. In many companies, making a group decision can create long debates that can rage on extensively for the sake of making the perfect decision and not making a mistake.

When it comes to IoT applications, high-performance analytic databases typically serve to handle in-depth analytic processing needs -- especially applications that require combining machine data analysis with other forms of enterprise data analysis (e.g., billing, customer profiles, mobile usage) to support comprehensive analytic requirements.

Having great ideas is wonderful. Selling them to others so they get implemented is even better. No matter where you are in the IT organization, think of the people you interact with as your customers and engage in a sales process with them to promote your ideas. As the leader of an IT organization, develop a sales mindset within your workforce. The cornerstone of this mindset is to start regarding all the people your team works with as customers and to focus on those customers' needs.

The impact of robotics is hot in current debates, but this must be seen within a larger context and on a longer time horizon. Automation, involving all the SMAC (social, mobile, analytics, and cloud) technologies, and not just from robotics, may have the biggest impact of all, both on outsourcing and on its character. One of the reasons automation is compelling is the rapid decline in the cost of computing relative to the cost of labor.

The recent Cutter Summit 2015 presented many enlightening and inspiring presentations, including the "lightning talks," in which 12 participants spent five minutes each describing a current noteworthy development or result. Very impressive. This was after Cutter Fellow Steve Andriole encouraged us to review our resumes, as he described the imminent demise of the IT organization in most enterprises. This situation evolves through recent technology developments and organizational patterns, such as cloud.