Agile methodologies have moved forward considerably since they first appeared in the 1990s, but implementation as standard practice within the enterprise has lagged.

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. 

The accompanying Executive Report discusses the framework, process, and practical enactment of business transformation. The report is based on the unique experiences I've had providing consulting and training services to three separate organizations over the past two years.

Enterprise data integrity, security, and confidentiality have long relied on combined network- and application-based security. When data was secured on local centralized systems using role-based account access supported by strong firewalls, the thinking was that corporate data was well secured.

I've been thinking quite a bit about the word "static" and how it might be used to describe some aspects of the Information Age in which we live. Static is an interesting word, having more than one meaning when used in different contexts.

Have you overseen or been part of a successful agile pilot that was followed by several lukewarm agile adoptions? Has agile been very successful at the tactical level but caused so many problems as it spread inside the organization that it was eventually dropped or changed beyond all recognition?

Open source software (OSS) entered the enterprise gradually and almost invisibly, generally with Linux in technical and infrastructure areas frequently buried in the IT department and below the corporate radar. However, open source has grown in importance and gained a retinue of powerful supporters such as IBM, HP, and Novell.

Leadership skills get tested when times are tough, when business is down, and when morale is low. How do you motivate your people after 20% of their colleagues have been laid off? How do you focus their attention on your vision for the future when they are skeptical as to whether there will even be a future, or if they will be a part of it?

Businesses and governments collect a large amount of personal information, some of it quite sensitive, about their clients, employees, patients, and citizens. At the same time, a random scan of media reports on any given day will find multiple stories of personal data being lost by or stolen from corporations and governments.

A "fuzzy" project is one where something feels out of sorts. Maybe the goal statement is a bit aggressive and you wonder whether or not it can be achieved. Maybe the proposed solution just doesn't seem to do the job. Or maybe the assumption of a cause-and-effect relationship between goal and solution is a bit of a stretch. Some managers would argue that all of their projects are fuzzy projects.

In a global offshore outsourcing market that saw some US $55 billion in revenue in 2008, Brazil, Russia, India, and China are commonly seen as the "BRIC" inheritors of globalization, offering both offshore IT and back-office services as well as huge potential markets (with their vast populations and developing economies). However, as of mid-2009, there are more than 120 other active offshore locations. All are looking for new business, and many are making strategic investments in developing scale and capability.

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. SOA and agile methodologies are commonly seen as opposites, but opposites that don't attract.

Business intelligence (BI) has been evolving recently under the combined pressures of more sophisticated processing requirements, wider access for nonanalysts, and the increasing need for real-time analysis. The need for analysis is acute, yet meeting that need with the traditional enterprise data warehouse structure is viewed as increasingly problematic.

From not enough resources to more demanding customers to the rapid pace of change, IT faces increasing challenges. And in the midst of all this, the business depends on us even more to find new ways to leverage technology to increase business competitiveness. IT must also deal with a variety of problems, such as legacy system costs, backlog of demand, and "solutions" that are often more hype than reality.

This Executive Report by Dr. Sara Cullen is the third in a four-part series on the outsourcing lifecycle. The series is based on a detailed understanding of the outsourcing experiences of 107 organizations. This report picks up where Part II left off and takes you through the final building block of the Architect Phase (Design) and the two building blocks of the Engage Phase (Select and Negotiate), the first two of four phases in the outsourcing lifecycle. These building blocks will have a crucial effect on how successful your outsourcing initiative will be.

Global companies labor under fixed costs such as taxation but can control variable costs such as labor, IT infrastructures, and repetitive processes. Both wireless technology (e.g., RFID, GPS, real-time location systems, and mobile computing) and the continuous improvement discipline (including lean and Six Sigma) target variable costs; together, they provide a methodology of creating and applying business rules that drive down variable costs. This Executive Report examines this combined "lean wireless" paradigm.

The accompanying Executive Report proposes a lasting solution to the business-IT divide. Essentially, the solution is to remove the divide by bringing computing back to the people -- the businesspeople.

Conventional business intelligence (BI) has evolved from an age when the "factory" was the dominant business infrastructure and computers were employed to accelerate factory processes.

Agile methodologies are helping teams deliver software much faster and with much higher quality than ever before. Given the success of agile at the development team level, many managers are exploring the possibility of broadly implementing these methodologies with the intent of achieving the quality, productivity, and ROI benefits across the entire product-delivery organization.

Organizations that review their contracts on a systematic and regular basis will get more out of them in terms of both quality and financial results. Making the comprehensive reviews a core part of contract management practice signals to everyone involved in delivering and/or managing the arrangement that performance matters.

Simulation is not new to business intelligence (BI), but its role is evolving. Within BI, it is evolving to create more realistic scenarios for analysis; outside of BI, it's being engaged for learning and enhanced reality. In whatever way a company uses simulation, it can drive superior performance and adherence to business rules.

Technology-fueled globalization is setting new terms for competition in all aspects of business. Organizations that wish to stay in the market must reinvent the way they finance, resource, research, design, produce, distribute, market, sell, and service. They must change the way they do everything.

The software as a service (SaaS) model has matured as a viable strategic alternative to conventional software service options. The accompanying Executive Report elaborates on the distinct technical and managerial characteristics of SaaS and the implications of these differences regarding adoption decisions.

Many approaches to enterprise architecture (EA) are based on ideas that are rooted in the 1970-1980s world of internal IT shops, which puts the focus on the framework as an instrument for keeping internal IT assets in order.