At around 16 pages, Executive Reports offer a deep, strategic look into a cutting edge issue, and serve as foundations to developing your own approaches. Short abstracts on the cover of each report help you immediately understand how the subject matter might impact your enterprise.

Agile in Practice: A Composite Approach

Bhuvan Unhelkar
Abstract

This Executive Report by Bhuvan Unhelkar presents the Composite Agile Method and Strategy (CAMS) as an all-encompassing approach to the use of agile principles and practices across processes at various levels within the


Enterprise Risk Management Framework: A Practical View

Ken Doughty
Abstract

Enterprise risk management (ERM) facilitates management's desire to effectively manage the organization's risk and to create sustainable value to its stakeholders through capital growth and increased dividend stream. No organization operates in a risk-free environment, and ERM does not create such an environment.


The Winds of Change Have Begun to Blow

Lynne Ellyn, Cutter Business Technology Council, Cutter Business Technology Council, Cutter Business Technology Council, Andrew Fried
Domain

IT industry

Assertion 188:

The software industry has had an extended childhood and adolescence, free from the legal responsibilities and market expectations governing mature industries. But childhood is over, and it's time for the software industry to grow up.


Developing Viable ROI Solutions to Justify New IT Infrastructure Projects

Dave Higgins
Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that it's difficult, if not impossible, to cost-justify a technology project, particularly if the project is primarily technology infrastructure.


How to Write a Bulletproof Project Overview Statement

Robert Wysocki
Abstract

In this Executive Report by Robert K. Wysocki, we examine the project overview statement (POS) -- the first document you create as part of the process for getting approval of a new proposed project.


Enterprise 3.0: How IT's All Going to Change

Steve Andriole
Abstract

Enterprise 3.0 is about the radical changes that will move us away from talking about business technology alignment and closer to business technology convergence -- the inevitable outcome of technology, business, and management trends.


Enterprise 3.0: How IT's All Going to Change

Steve Andriole
Abstract

Enterprise 3.0 is about the radical changes that will move us away from talking about business technology alignment and closer to business technology convergence -- the inevitable outcome of technology, business, and management trends.


SOA: Understanding the Practice 2010 -- Creating Business-Driven Services

Tushar Hazra
Abstract

Many may say that service-oriented architecture (SOA) is not the "next big thing" in 2010 and beyond. However, to arrive at the future of SOA and all its potential, the time to act is now -- build business services today.


Implementing Organizational Change for Agile Development

Brian Dooley
Abstract

By now, agile methodologies have become established as a means of correcting a variety of ills within the software development environment. The next step is to move them to center stage within the enterprise.


Key Activities of the Outsourcing Lifecycle: Part IV

Sara Cullen
This is the final Executive Report in a four-part series by Dr. Sara Cullen on the outsourcing lifecycle. The series is based on a detailed understanding of the outsourcing experiences of 107 organizations. This report takes you through the last three building blocks focused on transition, management, and the next generation (that is, the next contract). It is during these building blocks that the work done (or not done!) in the earlier part of the lifecycle, discussed in the previous Executive Reports, can hit hard. And even if done well, there are many challenges, as you will see.

Unbalanced Priorities

Ronald Blitstein, Cutter Business Technology Council, Cutter Business Technology Council, Cutter Business Technology Council
Domain

Innovation

Assertion 187:

Companies have pursued efficiency, economies of scale, and mass markets at the expense of products that excite consumers and promote loyalty. The upside has been declining unit-cost curves, which have allowed products to reach consumers at prices more affordable than ever before. However, the downside has been a series of "me, too" products that fail to inspire.


SOA Tipping Point

Mike Rosen, Cutter Business Technology Council, Cutter Business Technology Council, Cutter Business Technology Council
Domain

System architecture

Assertion 186:

SOA has reached a tipping point in organizations' abilities to deliver business value.


The Business Transformation Process

Bhuvan Unhelkar
Abstract

This Executive Report outlines the framework and process of business transformation.


Data Security Implications for New Enterprise Architectures

Beth Cohen
Abstract

Data integrity and confidentiality have long relied on a combination of network- and application-based security. As enterprise architecture (EA) becomes more complex, data is progressively more integrated within massive data warehouses and distributed architectures.


The End of the Internet Static Age: Desperately Seeking Search 3.0

Mitchell Ummel
Abstract

Barriers to the continual refinement of today's traditional search engine model are looming as the Internet continues to grow exponentially, as the information signal-to-noise ratio continues to shrink, and as we embrace the emerging Web 3.0 era, which is characterized by semantically linked data.


Making Agile "Sticky": Strategies for Long-Term Success with Agile Adoption

Amr Elssamadisy
Abstract

If you are experiencing problems with your agile adoption initiatives, you are not alone. However, with experience we've seen common attributes and behaviors emerge that you can employ to increase your chances of agile success -- as well as to avoid failure.


Open Source Governance Within the Enterprise

Brian Dooley
Abstract

Open source software (OSS) is becoming increasingly important within the enterprise as it moves out from its original base within the IT infrastructure and server environment.


Leadership During Tough Times

Moshe Cohen
Abstract

Leadership skills are tested when times are tough, when business is down, and when morale is low. So how do you motivate your people after 20% of their colleagues have been laid off? How do you focus their attention on future prosperity when the future seems so uncertain?


Architecture for the Sustainable Enterprise

Mike Rosen, Tamar Krichevsky, Harsh Sharma
More and more enterprises are exploring how to become green and sustainable. Yet the terminology and methods for doing so are often confusing and inconsistent throughout the enterprise. What do we mean by "green?" What do we mean by "sustainable?" Can we truly incorporate greenness throughout our business in a systematic way, or will it be an ad hoc approach? This Executive Report by Michael Rosen, Harsh Sharma, and Tamar Krichevsky focuses on how architecture can lead the way to real changes in an organization.

Managing Privacy Risks Through Data Anonymization

Khaled Emam
Abstract

Breaches of personal information are a growing concern for the public and represent significant financial and legal risk to enterprises. This risk can be effectively managed by classifying business functions into those that need personal information and those that do not.


The Key to Managing "Fuzzy" Projects

Robert Wysocki
Abstract

In this Executive Report, I provide a strategy for the effective management of "fuzzy" projects. A fuzzy project is any project where the goal, the solution, or both are not clearly defined. Managing such high-risk projects is challenging.


The Book Is Dead, Long Live the E-Book

Ken Orr, Cutter Business Technology Council, Cutter Business Technology Council, Cutter Business Technology Council
Domain

E-business


New Wave Offshoring: The Non-BRIC Challenge in Business and IT Services

Leslie Willcocks, Catherine Griffiths, Mike Griffiths, Julia Kotlarsky
Abstract

Managers need to keep pace with rapid developments in global offshoring opportunities outside Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC). This Executive Report by Leslie Willcocks, Catherine Griffiths, and Julia Kotlarsky describes these developments and provides a 20-factor framework for assessing the location attractiveness of the emerging 120-plus countries offering offshore services.


Agile Service Orientation: Avoiding the "Ivory Tower"

Paul Allen
Abstract

A harsh economic recession calling for renewed cost reduction with an emphasis on tactical solution-delivery projects causes concern over the effectiveness of enterprise service-oriented architecture (SOA) and puts agile back in the limelight.


BI and the Cloud: Integration, Data Transfer, and Meaningful Results

Brian Dooley
Abstract

Cloud computing describes the state of the art in data center infrastructure and its possibilities. As we explore in this Executive Report by Brian J. Dooley, the cloud provides some hope for handling some of the trickiest issues regarding business intelligence (BI).