The idea of artificial intelligence (AI) has been around for a long time. Its roots are in the world of mathematics, yet AI also has a long history in the field of computer science. AI (the artificial creation of all aspects of life) has been seen as a daring concept but, in reality, AI is used routinely today by more people than ever before.

There are three major forces driving the need for a new paradigm of project management.

The accompanying Executive Report examines the importance of employing an effective evaluation model to consider vendors vying to become an organization's outsourcing partner. All too often, the process of evaluating vendor responses to an outsourcing request for proposal (RFP) is viewed as a single step in the outsourcing process.

The Internet has inserted information into the heart of the organization and transformed the role of the CIO, giving that individual an unparalleled opportunity to influence the efficiency, costs, and profitability of the business.

The Object Management Group (OMG) was founded in 1989 to promote the adoption of object-oriented technology and reusable software components. Within two years, it produced the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) specification and the Object Management Architecture (OMA), which mapped out its aims for the next decade.

Better, faster, cheaper -- the siren song of software development. Each new era of information technology belts out a chorus or two. The e-business era is no exception. In the e-business version, faster is the lead singer, and better and cheaper sing harmony. Time to market, first-mover advantage, Internet time, getting Amazoned -- these and other phrases pepper discussions of e-business.

Within IT, outsourcing is a well-established practice. When we speak of outsourcing, we tend to think of large-scale, long-term engagements covering the entire IT function, data center operations, or application maintenance and support. These types of outsourcing are certainly prevalent but are by no means the only forms of outsourcing in use.

Errors in medicine occur pervasively. They are an unavoidable part of daily practice and are made by all doctors, nurses, and administrators, even the very best. Other than in the most exceptional circumstances, these people are not incompetent, happily tolerating accidental error; neither are they criminal, deliberately causing harm.

The evolution of e-business requires the application of every aspect of risk management. At one side of the scale is a massive opportunity: the potential for new markets, more clients, and highly automated, high-volume services. On the other side is the possibility of increased fault, fraud, and crime, or a large capital investment in a service that may become out of date through unforeseen developments.

The only thing that everyone can agree on, regardless of what discipline they find themselves in career-wise, is that the world is different today. As one of my CIO friends said, "Jeez, I'm starting to sound like my grandmother." What makes things so different now?

Change is a way of life in the corporate world. Change will continue to reconfigure, and even erase, global and industrial boundaries, pushing businesses and industries to compete in new ways.

Analysts predict that business-to-business (B2B) sales over the Internet will reach US $500 billion by early next year and $2 trillion or more by 2004. In contrast, business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce sales are not expected to reach $400 billion until 2003. Business analysts believe that B2B will cut costs, reinvent supply chains, improve communications, and increase customer satisfaction.

As Dorothy so aptly pointed out in The Wizard of Oz, "We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."

The accompanying Executive Report invites companies to reexamine how they approach dispute resolution when outsourcing. Because the context in which dispute resolution occurs is often acrimonious, dispute resolution clauses are generally boilerplate provisions, viewed as a necessary evil rather than a potential benefit.

All people gravitate toward their strengths. The best cook makes the meals for the family. The mechanically inclined person fixes the squeaky door. The plant lover tends the garden.

Software organizations are implementing software critical chain project management to substantially reduce the elapsed time of their projects without adding resources (or increasing overtime), narrowing the project scope, increasing risk, or cutting quality of the delivered system. As a by-product, late projects are virtually eliminated.

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is an exciting development for the Internet. It is already seeing significant use as a means for exchanging data for business-to-business applications. As these XML applications continue to expand, it becomes important to determine how XML data will be stored and retrieved since these functions are necessary to support e-commerce.

Outsourcing affects everyone in the organization. Business decisions, financial considerations, and strategic directions all drive the decision to outsource, but people will make it work or let it flounder. Managers must be able to observe what people are experiencing, feeling, and thinking and how this is affecting everyone's efforts. Managers should then act to help people make outsourcing work.

Over the past decade and a half, there has been a marked shift in the nature and level of risk that organizations must deal with. Today, it's an organization's ability to understand and manage its full spectrum of risk that defines the boundary between success and failure.

The past three years have seen an enormous emphasis on application servers -- whatever they may be. The term is used in overlapping ways:

There are many things that prompt companies to consider outsourcing. Some organizations want to focus on their core competencies and offload nonstrategic functions to the outsourcer. Others want to pursue a new opportunity, change direction, or correct problems in their IT organization. None of these companies, however, would be willing to consider outsourcing if it meant a deterioration in service.

"The most important economic development of our lifetime has been the rise of a new system for creating wealth, based no longer on muscle but on mind." --

Alvin Toffler

The vision of distributed computing has been an attractive one for the computing industry for many years. The original goal was to build computer systems that reflected the distributed nature of real organizations -- low-cost computers that could be located in field offices and warehouses alongside their users, with improved productivity and reduced costs.

Today, India points with pride to the fact that more than 220 US Fortune 1000 companies are doing business with Indian software service companies. But even with this many companies actively involved in offshore outsourcing, there is a general lack of accurate and detailed information available to those considering outsourcing to India.

Information technology, by way of distributed systems and the Internet, has penetrated every inch of the enterprise. Business units are launching supply chain alliances, building e-commerce sites, and spinning off e-business ventures.