Reasons vary as to why the use of speech as a means for employees to interface with enterprise applications has received only limited use. Arguments run from limitations associated with the accuracy of early speech recognition systems to questions pertaining to their expected ROI in business scenarios. But I think the biggest reason has been the lack of a real need to actually use speech systems in the enterprise. Simply put, it has just been easier for employees to access most enterprise systems using a keyboard while they were at work; and this was the case for years.

The latest findings in neuroscience have broad implications for all aspects of business, from product design to leadership. Hot topics include human task performance, learning, motivation, attention, and memory. Deep insights from this research can lead to the creation of better software. For the IT professional, this will change the way software is designed and developed. It will also change how software teams are assembled and managed.

One of the many concepts only lightly touched on in Dean Leffingwell's Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) material is the concept of "Ba." As with many other things in SAFe, it is worthwhile here to spend some time digging for the original ideas and publications -- and to find a gem from 1998 that was unknown at least to me.

There is a growing buzz in the blogosphere that agile architecture means combining Agile software methodologies with software architecture best practices. So, is that what agile architecture is all about?

Perhaps, but that's not the whole story. We also need to reinvent the practice of EA to achieve business agility in the enterprise. Software plays an important role, but agile architecture isn't really about software. It's about the people in the organization.

In recent years, Agile software development has gained a lot of interest in the fields of software engineering, information systems development, and project management. Agile software development methods have gained a level of maturity, with many organizations adopting them for at least some of their software development needs in a variety of small, medium-sized, and large software projects.

Wave is not your traditional enterprise BI toolset. Nor is it simply another add-on data visualization product. Rather, Wave employs a hybrid BI and search design intended to provide nontechnical end users with interactive self-service BI exploration and analysis capabilities.

The world of software development is now, and has been since its beginning, in a state of flux. When you think about it, how could it be otherwise? Software is the enabling technology that glues together all the other rapidly changing elements of 21st-century technology. Software not only powers your smartphone or big data cloud, it also helps chip designers to create hardware at submicroscopic levels. And software now powers tools that can recognize one face in a crowd of thousands.

As a senior manager, you set priorities and determine whether these recommendations are implemented. Ensure all parties engage and coordinate to get data quality the attention it needs at the right time and place in the project. In this Advisor, we highlight some best practices for collaboration.

To begin, you must understand how your data knowledge network affects project management:

A curious thing happens when an EA team adopts a particular framework -- it takes on the preconceptions of that framework. This broadly means that companies adopting TOGAF assume a process-driven approach to EA, while those using the Zachman Framework embrace a more content-driven style.

[From the Editor: This week's Cutter IT Advisor is from Cutter Senior Consultant Dave Rooney's introduction to the October 2014 issue of Cutter IT Journal, "Agile in the Real World" (Vol. 27, No. 10). Learn more about Cutter IT Journal.]

Innovation has become accepted as central to competiveness in today's world, both in new product development and in enhancement of internal processes. Companies struggle with innovation, and there have been numerous attempts to regularize and program it. But the development of truly breakthrough ideas is difficult, and recognizing them when they do arrive can be harder still.

The news of the past few months has been more than a little alarming. Ebola crosses into the US. Rioters take hold of Ferguson, Missouri. The stock market plunges, and plunges again. Watching the news of ISIS (or ISIL, if you prefer), the beheadings, and the imminent threats to any semblance of world peace can make you want to hide under the covers and stay in bed. Is there anything that those in the executive suite can do in this situation? YES! And it doesn't involve profiteering on the backs of tragedy after tragedy. It involves a simple message of sanity and hope.

No project manager would deliberately make an irrational decision. The issue arises when we mistakenly believe we are making a rational decision when in fact it's a biased one. The following examples are just a few of the unconscious biases that can potentially lead to irrational decisions.

A natural human propensity causes us to approach new technology with old thinking, which significantly slows the rate at which we truly take advantage of the change. In this Advisor, we analyze this syndrome -- which I call the "Technology 1.0 Syndrome" -- and discuss how to break out of it in the case of mobile computing technology.

For a given technology, the progression from discovery to development to integration may involve different people. From senior management to junior staff, the people who are good at discovering new technologies often like to continue doing that, just as integrationists like building on new and existing technologies.

This article is based on a briefing I had with Sensoria CEO Davide Vigano. Part I covered the company's platform, combining textile and traditional sensors and mobile and cloud technologies to enable manufacturers to create biometric-sensing garments with sensors embedded directly within the fabric of clothing (see "Sensoria, Biometric-Sensing Fabric, and Wearable Technologies, Part I").

Over the last decade, software developers Mary and Tom Poppendieck and others have pointed out that just as in manufacturing, software development benefits from Lean thinking. More recently, Lean methods have extended to broader business processes, including both development and operations (DevOps).

Infectious disease experts from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and medical advisors from other US public health agencies have repeatedly stated that the US healthcare system is more than capable of dealing with any incidences of Ebola that occur in the US. Since the outbreak began in West Africa, the press has cited various officials saying that the US -- indeed, the western world in general -- leads in understanding Ebola and how to contain the disease.

The attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on 11 September 2001 exposed the need for developing business continuity planning and disaster recovery (BCP-DR) strategies. After those attacks, IT infrastructure planners and data center architects across the world started incorporating alternate sites and high availability of applications and services in their designs.

By looking ahead to a time when monitoring blood sugar and delivering insulin can occur in real time, one can see a time when worldwide diabetes might be brought under control, and with it all its terrible side effects. Moreover, research has already shown promise that blood sugar monitoring can be made nonintrusive. Google, for one, has patented a contact lens that monitors blood sugar via the fluids in the eye.

Earlier this month I participated in an international symposium mounted in honor of Professor Piet Ribbers' retirement from Tilburg University, Netherlands. Piet has been a leader for more than 30 years through his teaching, research, and with his development of graduate and professional programs in information management.

One of the more frequent approaches to "scaling Agile" is a set of development teams doing what they call "Scrum" in a larger project. The overall project management has heard of Agile and has also given its consent to use Scrum, but otherwise is working the same way it has worked for 20 years. After all, managers argue, "Scrum is only a development method." Some consider this approach "disciplined" for whatever reason; others call it "Scrum inside a waterfall." Here's a war story about what can happen in this setting.

Evolution is one of the eight factors that lies at the heart of enterprise architecture (see "Eight Factors in All Enterprise Architectures"). Roadmaps help analyze, plan, and manage architecture evolution. Roadmapping is the process of creating and using roadmaps, and it is one of the key capabilities for members of an EA team.