As has been our tradition for the last several years, we've compiled the five most intriguing articles published by the Data Insight & Social BI practice this year for today's Advisor. How did we come up with this list?

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?

As has been our tradition for the last several years, we've compiled the five most intriguing articles published by the Business Technology Strategies practice this year for today's Advisor. How did we come up with this list?

As has been our tradition for the last several years, we've compiled the most intriguing articles published by the Agile Product & Project Management practice this year for today's Advisor. How did we come up with this list?

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.

-- Albert Einstein

Organizations have had the option of using high-performance analytic databases1 in public cloud environments like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) platforms, among others, for several years now.

Most organizations I've worked for instinctively realize that the workers' opinions and ideas have merit, but they didn't have a formal means of gathering this information and no means of analyzing the measures derived from the input. We used internal suggestion programs as the substitute for surveying our own people. We even mistakenly worked hard to avoid (and eliminate) opinions in the suggestions.

Our research, which we describe here and in greater detail in a recent Executive Report (see "A Culture of Resilience: Preparing for the Unexpected"), shows how several "high-performing" organizations employ what we call a "culture of organizational resilience" in order to help manage risk and uncertainty. We evaluated organizations that already had comprehensive risk management systems in place, ranging from tools and techniques to forecast risks to business continuity and crisis-management planning.

The strongest Agile PMOs I've seen are very good at helping teams that are new to Agile "hold the Agile process" and not succumb to the temptation to start making exceptions.

Last June I discussed how complex event processing (CEP)1 was receiving considerable interest from organizations due to its ability to increase operational efficiency by identifying and interpreting the effect of seemingly unrelated events taking place across the enterprise, and then notify

The US government along with governments and military establishments around the world now consider cyberspace the fifth domain of warfare, after space, land, sea, and air.

Gamification is a tech industry buzzword referring to the use of gaming techniques in non-game applications. Big Data refers to data having properties like huge volume, high velocity, variety, and variability. A lot of people are already talking about Big Data, but many people question what to do with this data and how to make actionable insights out of it.

Gamification is a tech industry buzzword referring to the use of gaming techniques in non-game applications. Big Data refers to data having properties like huge volume, high velocity, variety, and variability. A lot of people are already talking about Big Data, but many people question what to do with this data and how to make actionable insights out of it.

Time and again, I read articles about the restorative power of vacation time. Holidays. Time to get away from it all. I can think of nothing more horrible. As a self-confessed workaholic zealot, the thought of copious amounts of open time on my calendar completely freaks me out.

In his recent novel The Circle, Dave Eggers draws the picture of a fictitious Internet company called "The Circle" that has broken the anonymity of Internet communication and subsequently has bought Google, Twi

While most companies have become adept at improving processes of small scope, many firms continue to struggle with large-scale process change. The challenges that such firms face are rarely related to the mechanics of process improvement.

As is well known and often stated, organizations do not change -- people do. Employees, managers, colleagues, partners, suppliers, customers -- one at a time and then many. Without change, people become stagnant and organizations die.

Schools in the US states of Indiana, California, Idaho, Washington, and Virginia are now using real-time location systems (RTLS) to help ensure the safety of students, teachers, and other staff. The systems -- developed by Ekahau Inc.

In the grand scheme of things, the invention of the wheel, which one would think was so fundamental for human progress, came rather late. Most likely invented around 3500 BC, a thousand years after the potter's wheel, the wheel was most likely extended from the design of sledges.

Many large organizations set up Agile focus or mentoring groups for driving Agile implementation across the organization. They entrust those Agile groups with improving IT delivery capabilities by applying suitable methods. In this Advisor, I share four practical tips to be aware of while operating Agile focus groups.

Just from the title alone you will probably guess what my conclusion will be: that enterprise architecture is both art and science. Well, I certainly would agree that EA is both an art and a science, but there are a couple of points that I need to make here.

[From the Editor: This week's Cutter IT Advisor is from Scott W. Ambler's introduction to the November 2013 issue of Cutter IT Journal, "Disciplined Agile Delivery: The Foundation for Scaling Agile" (Vol. 26, No. 11).

As we move into the era of Big Data analysis and extensive use of unstructured data, it is time to take a closer look at data-quality issues. While there have long been procedures in place for ensuring quality of transactional data, unstructured data has been less well served. Unstructured data and data sources outside of the firm can be relatively opaque. Processes should be developed to ensure that data is maintained for future use -- adequately stored, accurate, and secure.

As we move into the era of Big Data analysis and extensive use of unstructured data, it is time to take a closer look at data-quality issues. While there have long been procedures in place for ensuring quality of transactional data, unstructured data has been less well served.

The concept of notice and consent pervades modern privacy law and regulations. The efforts are laudable, but our cognitive limits and the rapid pace of advancing technology are straining their usefulness.