Cutter Consortium: Business-IT Strategies

Leveraging the Risks of Others: A Question of Ethics

18 Jun 2009 20:11:40 GMT

Pritchard, Carl | E-Mail Advisors | 18 June 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business-IT Strategies

Ever worry about stealing someone else's idea? Or worse still, stealing your own ideas while working from one client to the next? The ethical high road is a challenging one to take on an ongoing basis, when so many potential ethical lapses are the result of lapses, rather than intentional commitment of the act. Nowhere is this more true than in risk management. Consider the following scenario:

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2009/erm090618.html

The Quasi-Service Provider Model: Exploding the Holy Grail

17 Jun 2009 19:59:01 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 17 June 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

The idea of running IT as a business has gained much traction in recent years -- especially with the continued upsurge in all things IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). The holy grail of business-IT alignment will only be achieved, so this argument goes, when the internal IT department acts as a quasi-service provider that is subjected to the same principle of service-level management that we apply to our external providers.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090617.html

No Magic Bullet for Framing IT's Value Proposition

10 Jun 2009 19:44:56 GMT

Benson, Robert J.; Bugnitz, Tom | E-Mail Advisors | 10 June 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Over the past few months, we have talked with IT leadership in large and small companies. The discussion focused on how well IT is performing for their company. Following are the main points common to all the companies with which we've been involved lately:

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090610.html

Managing the Complete Product Lifecycle, Part II: The Technical Product Manager

3 Jun 2009 16:16:32 GMT

Rasmussen, David N. | E-Mail Advisors | 03 June 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

One of the roles of a product manager is to ensure the technical integrity of the product. The product manager should focus on verifying the product's conformance to the design specification for functionality, performance, reliability, service, and support. All are vital attributes of a new product and are key to the future acceptance of the product by users.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090603.html

Adopting the SaaS Model for Business Applications

1 Jun 2009 16:10:10 GMT

Xin, Mingdi | Executive Summaries | 01 June 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

The software as a service (SaaS) model has matured as a viable strategic alternative to conventional software service options. This Executive Report by Dr. Mingdi Xin elaborates on the distinct technical and managerial characteristics of SaaS and the implications of these differences on a client’s adoption decision. Propositions are derived, and subsequently verified using survey data, that connect customers’ business and technical needs with their benefits from adopting SaaS. The report concludes with implications of SaaS adoption on IT strategy.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/summaries/2009/06/index.html

Economic Crunch Offers Agile, Enduring Lessons

27 May 2009 16:04:32 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 27 May 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

The waves of the business cycle are becoming ripples. The recent American combination of minimal inflation and very low unemployment may not be an aberration, but the beginning of a new worldwide trend. Smarter government policy, globalization, changes in employment, advances in information technology, and emerging markets all cushion shocks and dampen the familiar boom and bust. The consequences for world politics and prosperity will be profound.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090527.html

EA and SOA: A Marriage Made in Heaven?

27 May 2009 16:03:30 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 27 May 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies

While EA and service-oriented architecture (SOA) have their own advocates and camps of followers, recent developments have seen many of the EA approaches and frameworks looking to offer increasing support for SOA. The fact that business is increasingly conducted in a collaborative fashion, using distributed Internet technologies, makes this very welcome. While I review these developments and more in an upcoming Executive Report ("EA Meets SOA in a Challenged Global Economy"), right now I want to offer some general observations on extending your EA to support SOA.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090527.html

What Employees Don't Know About Information Security Can Hurt Business

20 May 2009 15:43:05 GMT

Herold, Rebecca | E-Mail Advisors | 20 May 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Businesses depend heavily on use of the Internet to perform their activities. But have business personnel received enough training and ongoing awareness communications about how to use the Internet securely? Has your staff received any training or awareness communications at all?

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090520.html

Processes, Clear and Messy

20 May 2009 15:42:19 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | Executive Updates | 20 May 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

It's not the technology, stupid; it's the processes. Processes are good, bad, ugly, or indifferent depending on how well -- or poorly -- you incentivize their efficacy. Let me repeat: it's not the technology. In fact, among the triumvirate of people, process, and technology, technology is the least likely case of failure. Then comes people. But at the top of the list are the processes we anoint as our problem-solving saviors.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2009/bitu0907.html

Managing the Complete Product Lifecycle, Part I

6 May 2009 16:01:35 GMT

Rasmussen, David N. | E-Mail Advisors | 06 May 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

This Advisor is the first in a series that will examine the role of the product manager in an IT business along with some of the alternatives for defining that role and its ultimate contribution to the corporation.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090506.html

A Capability Trilogy, Part III: Triage Comes Into Play

6 May 2009 16:00:35 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 06 May 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies

While the notion of core/context capabilities is central to the whole capability-driven approach, it is sometimes quite difficult to take a strictly binary view. Graduating capabilities in terms of their degree of commoditization can help, and it is possible to use several classifications along a spectrum from high to low commoditization. At the same time, it's important not to overegg the pudding.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090506.html

Frames: How to Treat Software Components as Capital Assets -- and Why You Should

1 May 2009 15:55:06 GMT

Bassett, Paul G. | Executive Summaries | 01 May 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

The key technical barrier to capitalizing software components is our insistence on defining them as use-as-is, encapsulated executables. A proven technology -- known as "frames" -- breaks this barrier by shifting from use-as-is parts to "smart parts" that customize each other as needed. Independent auditors confirm that these capital assets deliver hard-to-believe ROIs. They also enable major improvements across software's entire lifecycle, from requirements gathering to so-called maintenance. As with any paradigm shift, it's fraught with nontechnical barriers. This Executive Report by Paul G. Bassett explains how to overcome the barriers and why you should.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/summaries/2009/05/index.html

Information Security Training Boosts Business

29 Apr 2009 15:51:29 GMT

Herold, Rebecca | E-Mail Advisors | 29 April 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

How much effort and planning has your organization put into information security and privacy training and awareness efforts? Do you know who does your information security and privacy training? Have you taken a look at it lately? Is it effective, or just a token act to barely meet legal requirements? And do you have ongoing awareness communications about information security and privacy? Are they engaging and actually read by your personnel? If not, maybe it's time for a change.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090429.html

Some Tips on Leading in a Time of Scarcity

23 Apr 2009 15:41:47 GMT

Pritchard, Carl | E-Mail Advisors | 23 April 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business-IT Strategies

With the current state of the economy, there has been a seemingly endless stream of articles about scarcity and the natural human reactions to it. Almost to a one, the articles examine the propensity of individuals to focus on what they might not have if the situation doesn't improve, prompting the reaction of thrift. People save. People hoard. People limit their consumption. In some instances, this sense of thrift is blamed as the cause of many of our economic woes. If only people would go back to their spending, everything would be fine, we are told.

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2009/erm090423.html

You Can't Manage Without Data About Value

22 Apr 2009 15:38:26 GMT

Benson, Robert J. | E-Mail Advisors | 22 April 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

I met with several CIOs recently and discussed their approaches to cost containment. In the discussion, one made the interesting point that cost containment is merely the current crisis. CIOs have regularly faced others: innovation (last year), alignment (the year before), demonstrated value of IT (the year before that), and so forth. And, he assured us, we'll certainly have new crises next year.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090422.html

Getting to the Root of Corporate Change -- Motivation

22 Apr 2009 15:37:03 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 22 April 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies; Agile Project Management

As an architect, I'm constantly challenged to help organizations come up with better ways to do things. Unfortunately, in IT, we don't usually bring in architecture before there is some kind of mess to clean up. The typical scenarios include: complexity has gotten out of control, costs are too high, it takes too long to do anything, systems are brittle and can't be changed, a change in one place breaks something somewhere else, and on and on. You know the litany of problems.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090422.html

My Body, My System

15 Apr 2009 15:02:40 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 15 April 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

The argument was getting heated. At one end of the table stood the Linux bigots, banded together and angry. At the other end were the Microsoft bigots, standing stalwart and snooty. At stake was the future of operating systems for a new business intelligence platform. Neither side would retreat from its position that its product was superior. Both sides believed that the dire fate of the world demanded their undying defense of their patch of green and their obstinate opposition to the other side. There I stood on the sideline reflecting on the famous quote that politics can be so brutal when the stakes are so low. I could conjure no Wisdom of Solomon to help ease the pain of the losing side. Both sides argued as if they were about to lose an arm.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090415.html

Best Practices for Minimizing Harm from Layoffs and Downsizing

15 Apr 2009 15:01:46 GMT

Jones, Capers | Executive Updates | 15 April 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Editor's note: This Executive Update is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the author's book Best Practices in Software Engineering (McGraw-Hill, forthcoming 2009); Chapter 1 discusses 50 best practices. Here, we present the first topic: best practices for minimizing harm from layoffs and downsizing. As the recession deepens, layoffs, downsizing, and bankruptcies will increase in number. Past recessions indicate that these activities are often handled so poorly that they result in loss of operational efficiency for a period of years. There are no perfect solutions for downsizing, but cautions are provided for common problems.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2009/bitu0906.html

A Capability Trilogy, Part II: The Nine Dimensions of Capability

15 Apr 2009 15:00:44 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 15 April 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies

As discussed in the first Advisor in this series (see "A Capability Trilogy, Part I: The Politics of Capability," 25 March 2009), capability-oriented thinking is becoming increasingly influential in methodologies, enterprise architecture frameworks, and business strategy. A business capability (capability for short) is a combination of capacity and ability to perform a coherent family of functions in terms of what must be done to achieve stated outcomes (see my Business-IT Strategies Executive Report, "Business Capabilities: Realizing the Potential" Vol. 12, No. 2).

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090415.html

Pulling Rank: Use Your Mission to Determine Project Portfolio Priorities

8 Apr 2009 13:18:29 GMT

Rothman, Johanna | E-Mail Advisors | 08 April 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

One of the most difficult parts of project portfolio management is deciding how to rank the projects -- that is, determining which should be done now, later, and, most important, never. There are several ways to rank a project portfolio. Each is useful in specific situations and not so useful in others. But all share the same goal; namely, arriving at a single ranked list of projects.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090408.html

With IT, You Can't Just Horse Around

1 Apr 2009 13:12:22 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 01 April 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Now that I am in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, the horse capital of the world, my thoughts have predictably wandered over to horses. I thought I might want to own a horse. So I called the family horse expert, my sister. She rode competitively in college and has owned and trained many horses. Currently, her daughters are riding competitively, and she is helping to teach them all about horses. So I called her mobile phone.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090401.html

Managing Technology in a 2.0 World

1 Apr 2009 13:11:14 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | Executive Reports | 01 April 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Operational technology will persist with hierarchical management structures, centralization, and standardization -- though the sourcing of infrastructure will change dramatically through "X as a service" delivery models, open source software, and thin-client architectures, among other infrastructure opportunities. Strategic technology will completely decentralize into the business, where applications will be created and deployed with new tools and methods, such as mashups, widely available APIs, and interoperable service-oriented and event-driven architectures. The two worlds will officially divorce. This Executive Report by Steve Andriole explores this split and the rethinking, planning, and strategizing that will drive the management of business technology in the 2.0 world.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/report/2009/04/index.html

Negotiating in Hard Times

1 Mar 2009 14:33:22 GMT

Cohen, Moshe | Executive Reports | 01 March 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Negotiations become more challenging during economic hard times. This Executive Report by Moshe Cohen discusses three crucial factors for negotiation -- negotiating styles, the drivers of negotiating strategy, and the emotional competence of negotiators -- and examines ways in which negotiations shift relative to these factors during stressful economic climates. During such periods, negotiating styles become more avoidant, competitive, and less collaborative, while strategies focus on short-term personal interests at the expense of relationships, communication, and commitments. In addition, the ability to recognize and manage your emotions as well as the emotions of others becomes more limited. The report also provides strategies to help negotiate effectively despite today's challenging environment.

http://www.cutter.com/alignment/fulltext/reports/2009/03/index.html

In Time of Testing, Remember Values, Communication, Slack, Part I

26 Mar 2009 14:31:40 GMT

Spica, Daniel | E-Mail Advisors | 26 March 2009 | Agile Project Management; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business-IT Strategies; Innovation

It is sad but true that the economic crisis has now also appeared in Poland. Somehow, many of us here in Poland have been under the mistaken assumption that we would be undisturbed by the current economic crisis; that this was only an American and Western European problem. Of course, it couldn't remain that way. The unfortunate side of globalization is that the entire globe experiences the good with the bad. No one can predict how long the current crisis will last, just as no one was able to predict that the catastrophe would occur. The experience shows, however, that we should not count on the economic wizards or at least not to worry too much about their words. In my opinion, the best solution is to work hard and wisely. And while you are working, continue to think about a few rules that remain true.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2009/apm090326.html

Systems Approach Deals with the High-Risk Team Member

26 Mar 2009 14:30:29 GMT

Pritchard, Carl | E-Mail Advisors | 26 March 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Agile Project Management; Business-IT Strategies

What do you do when a team member is actually creating higher risk for the team, and yet you need that person and/or the organization insists you keep him or her? This is actually a far more common quandary than we care to believe. These instances exist because organizations often have policies that allow no "easy out" for employee dismissal and don't really invest themselves at getting to the root of the problem. Instead, they assume that such issues will work themselves out over time (which actually exacerbates the problem).

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2009/erm090326.html

IT Cost-Containment Principles: A View of Supply, Demand

25 Mar 2009 14:27:49 GMT

Benson, Robert J. | E-Mail Advisors | 25 March 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

I recently conducted a workshop on IT cost containment at a national conference (note that I will give an overview and discussion at this year's Cutter Consortium Summit 2009, 4-6 May, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA). In the workshop, I present several critical principles. I separate them into the "supply" and "demand" principles. The supply principles relate to the ways the IT organization responds to business IT requirements. The demand principles relate to how IT manages the development of IT requirements. These, of course, are mirror images; the principles applying to the "supply" are the response side to the "demand" for IT services. Yet addressing them separately leads to better understanding of the cost-containment opportunities.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090325.html

Mutualism and Competitive Advantage: Smart Trends in Intelligence Research

18 Mar 2009 14:12:33 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 18 March 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

A company is a collection of distinct units that are supposed to collaborate well with each other in order to deliver a superior product or service. But do all the parts work together well? In times of transition and significant change, how firms do things can also change significantly, requiring the units within the firm to learn how to realign and collaborate in new ways. But how well do the different units learn from each other and improve each other? Do managers of these separate, often competing, units stop to consider the possible benefits of learning together? Are all parts of the firm performing in a superior fashion? Before I explore these questions further, I want to refer not to the study of group performance, but individual cognitive performance, which may help us look at the problem differently.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090318.html

Learning More with Less Webinar

12 Mar 2009 14:03:20 GMT

Dublin, Lance | Webinars/Multimedia | 12 March 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

In this recessionary market your training/learning programs are most likely being intensely scrutinized, if not cut altogether. This can have a tremendous, negative, both short and long-term impact to maintaining the skills and morale of your staff, as well as your ability to attract talent and for future new-hires to quickly add value to the organization. In this hour-long webinar, Cutter Senior Consultant and learning expert Lance Dublin will provide you with ideas for how you can reduce the costs to train your IT staff as well as help reduce the expense of learning programs throughout your organization. Join Lance for this interactive session and get immediate answers and tips on how to press forward with learning under today's budgetary pressures.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/webinar/2009/morewithless.html

Fiefdom Syndrome: Reconciling Global Initiatives with Local Circumstances

12 Mar 2009 19:55:52 GMT

Goodwin, Van | Executive Updates | 12 March 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

IT managers face logistical problems in balancing global standards with local needs in increasingly globalized organizations. While many people in business and government repeat the mantra "think globally, act locally," applying this ideal entails a host of challenges ranging from coordinating communication across disparate time zones to determining technical standards implemented on top of wildly differing infrastructures. From the perspective of a central office, these issues manifest themselves in the apparent rise of "fiefdoms." These local offices are part of the global organization but often appear to centralized managers as if they're operating under their own rules without respect to the investment in decisions made by the organization as a whole. The fiefdoms, however, view global standards as irrelevant to their business or simply feel that their local practices are irrelevant to the organization as a whole.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2009/bitu0905.html

How IT Financial Managers Should Deal with Difficult Times

11 Mar 2009 19:52:38 GMT

Benson, Robert J. | E-Mail Advisors | 11 March 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

This month I gave a cost-containment workshop at a national conference on IT financial management. While there, I spent three good days listening to a variety of speakers who mostly focused on how better to manage IT investment. I've written about some of the highpoints and my impressions here.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090311.html

Toward a Calculus of Innovation (or How Silence Sounds)

5 Mar 2009 19:46:39 GMT

Devin, Lee | E-Mail Advisors | 05 March 2009 | Innovation; Business-IT Strategies

Making an innovation, like making anything else, begins at conception, proceeds through closure, and ends with delivery. Pretty straightforward. Simple, even, though perhaps not easy. The thing is, each of these processes, so far from being discrete and pure, interpenetrates each of the others and the entire process. We need a tool that will allow us to sort them out and think of them one at a time, a tool that will keep us mindful of their combination. Imagination, not intellect, does this work.

http://www.cutter.com/content/innovation/fulltext/advisor/2009/iea090305.html

The Principal-Agent Problem: An Old Alignment Issue with New Urgency

5 Mar 2009 19:43:32 GMT

Berry, John | Executive Updates | 05 March 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

If frequent mention of business-IT alignment were a capital offense, I would have been executed long ago instead of writing this Executive Update, which intends to amend my various comments in earlier Cutter publications about business-IT alignment. It's no crime to champion the cause of an important business issue, but I must plead guilty to a misdemeanor in overlooking an important subtlety, a fine distinction in the topic whose importance is heightened in our current economic mess.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2009/bitu0904.html

CIOs Should Prepare for an Energy Cost Savings Mandate

4 Mar 2009 19:41:26 GMT

Berry, John | E-Mail Advisors | 04 March 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

As organizations relentlessly seek cost-cutting opportunities in our darkening economic environment, energy consumption is likely a bright target. The IT organization should prepare for that day when an operations executive asks the CIO: how will your department contribute to the company's collective belt tightening with energy cost savings? Being prepared isn't just for Boy Scouts.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090304.html

Business Capability: Realizing the Potential

1 Feb 2009 14:16:24 GMT

Allen, Paul | Executive Reports | 01 February 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Business capabilities are fast emerging as a challenge to the traditional mindset of the business process. Both business architecture and software development methodologies are increasingly embracing business capabilities, which are heralded as an important breakthrough in business-IT alignment. How much truth is there in these claims? This Executive Report by Paul Allen takes a detailed, hard look at business capabilities, with guidance for realizing their potential with particular respect to the current tight economic climate.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/reports/2009/02/index.html

The Subtle, the Sublime, and the Nefarious: What We Don't See Sometimes Tells Us

27 Feb 2009 14:11:54 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | Executive Updates | 27 February 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

So maybe it's just the people I hang around with, or maybe it's just me, but my radar about what's being said between the lines is getting keener and keener. Communications professionals have long sensitized us to the elements of effective communication, which always includes insight and attention to the sender, the message, the channel, and the receiver. The message is the focus here. Often, there are clear and not-so-clear parts of business technology messages. It's important for our survival, especially these days, to fully understand what's said and what goes unspoken. Sometimes what's not actually said is the most important part of the message.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2009/bitu0903.html

Forecasting Executive (and Team) Behavior

26 Feb 2009 14:08:21 GMT

Pritchard, Carl | E-Mail Advisors | 26 February 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business-IT Strategies; Agile Project Management

Anyone who has been in the work force more than a matter of weeks has had the experience. You think you know what management wants. You believe you're working in the organization's best interests. You want to show some measure of independence and personal vision. And you act. No sooner do you show just a modicum of initiative, you are crushed like a grape!

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2009/erm090226.html

The Trojan Horse for IT

25 Feb 2009 14:03:09 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 25 February 2009 | Business-IT Strategies; Enterprise Architecture

Like me, you may already be all too well aware of the Trojan horse as a security threat and use regular virus checks to avoid the problem. Yet, the same idea -- smuggling through content under a label that refers to something else -- can be used with a much more positive effect.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090225.html

Six Techniques for Identifying KPIs for Business Performance Management

24 Feb 2009 14:00:09 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 24 February 2009 | Business Intelligence; Business-IT Strategies

In last week's Advisor, I wrote that the most demanding task confronting organizations in their business performance management initiatives is identifying and implementing the key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics needed to measure and manage operational performance in relation to strategies and goals (see, "Six Key Roadblocks En Route to Business Performance Management," 17 February 2009). Since several readers contacted me about this, I thought I'd make identifying KPIs the topic of this week's Advisor.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090224.html

IT Contributions to Institutionalizing Value-Based Governance: Three Steps Toward Unification

20 Feb 2009 13:56:34 GMT

Lampshire, Cheryl; Fletcher, Patricia A.K. | Executive Updates | 20 February 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

This Executive Update proposes three ways in which IT can provide significant contributions to institutionalizing value-based governance: (1) by providing robust integration of risk and compliance programs with organizational processes, (2) by supporting the sharing of corporate rituals and stories that reinforce values, and (3) achieving this sharing by implementing an interactive organizational symbol -- the virtual charismatic leader (VCL).

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2009/bitu0902.html

IT Governance and IT Budget Practices: Contrasting Latin America with the World

19 Feb 2009 13:51:00 GMT

Benson, Robert J.; Bugnitz, Tom | Executive Updates | 19 February 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

For Cutter Benchmark Review (CBR), Cutter Consortium has conducted three annual worldwide surveys about IT budget practices, and, in 2008, conducted a worldwide survey about dynamic IT and the impact of IT governance on the ability of companies to be dynamic.1 The participants were global in scope (about half from North America with the remaining from other parts of the world). In 2008, Cutter Mexico conducted its own survey with Latin American participants using questions about both IT budget and IT governance. This Executive Update reviews those results. The purpose is to compare and contrast the Latin American results with our world results, making observations and recommendations along the way.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2009/bitu09special01.html

Responding to Recessionary Cautions for Business and IT Alignment

18 Feb 2009 22:20:08 GMT

Hazra, Tushar K. | E-Mail Advisors | 18 February 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Concerns over a recession are affecting business and IT organizations globally -- private and public sectors alike. A number of economists and industry analysts submit that most companies need to realign their business and IT strategies to maintain a balanced state of operations for the next couple of years.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090218.html

All Aboard the SOA Governance Train: Laying down the Track

19 Feb 2009 22:19:00 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 18 February 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies

Despite the promises of service-oriented architecture (SOA), many organizations are increasingly encountering difficult governance issues as they start to ramp up their early SOA efforts. For example, if a service is to be widely used, then who owns the service, who funds it, who is allowed to provide it, who is allowed to use it, and how is it specified in a way that consumers can readily understand?

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090218.html

Six Key Roadblocks En Route to Business Performance Management

17 Feb 2009 22:15:15 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 17 February 2009 | Business Intelligence; Business-IT Strategies

Back in early January, I said that the most important BI-related initiative for organizations in 2009 would be business performance management (see "Business Performance Management Tops '09 Strategy List," 6 January 2009). In fact, I recommended that you consider business performance management a strategic application. In short, more organizations than ever before are undertaking business performance management initiatives. That said, organizations face a number of challenges in their quest to solve the business performance management equation. Based on my research and interaction with companies over the last few years, I've come up with a ranked list of the biggest issues and challenges confronting organizations as they attempt to carry out their business performance management efforts.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090217.html

Reinvention: McDonald's Did, and Circuit City Didn't

12 Feb 2009 22:10:55 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 12 February 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I am sitting here, sipping my free cup of coffee at McDonald's, looking across the parking lot at the huge going-out-of-business banners strung across the entrance to my local Circuit City store.

"I wonder," I joked with the McDonald's manager, who I know pretty well, "if they had to pay for those banners up front and in cash?"

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2009/erm090212.html

IT Cost-Cutting in a Time of Economic Peril

1 Jan 2009 14:27:55 GMT

Berry, John | Executive Reports | 01 January 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

In a time of aggressive cost-cutting, CIOs and other decision makers in an IT organization can play a key role in helping business units find cost-cutting quick-wins while also reducing the risks that such cost-cutting will compromise IT's future service abilities. This Executive Report by John Berry probes cost-cutting opportunities as well as decision-making methodologies that can help managers make difficult cuts to the most valuable resources -- people.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/reports/2009/01/index.html

Webinar: Learning More with Less - Register Today

12 Mar 2009 13:41:52 GMT

Dublin, Lance | Events | 12 March 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

In this recessionary market your training/learning programs are most likely being intensely scrutinized, if not cut altogether. This can have a tremendous, negative, both short and long-term impact to maintaining the skills and morale of your staff, as well as your ability to attract talent and for future new-hires to quickly add value to the organization. In this hour-long webinar, Cutter Senior Consultant and learning expert Lance Dublin will provide you with ideas for how you can reduce the costs to train your IT staff as well as help reduce the expense of learning programs throughout the organization. Join Lance for this interactive session. Ask Lance your questions, by voice or chat, and get immediate answers and tips on how to press forward with learning under today's budgetary pressures.

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/morewithless.html

Buy-In During an Economic Crisis: From Important to Essential

4 Feb 2009 13:34:30 GMT

Berry, John | E-Mail Advisors | 04 February 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Organizational skepticism about the virtues of a new technology idea are likely to run, at least in part, in direct proportion to the economic climate in which the company finds itself. When times are tough, it is essential that managers follow the basic rules of winning buy-in from key constituencies for their IT investment ideas. Here's how.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090204.html

Book Review: A Fresh Look at Building the Agile Enterprise

4 Feb 2009 13:33:10 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 04 February 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies

Are you ready for a fresh perspective on agility, architecture, and SOA? Then check out Building the Agile Enterprise with SOA, BPM and MBM, a book by Fred Cummins (Morgan Kaufmann, 2008). Don't let the title scare you away. While it does cover service-oriented architecture (SOA), business process management (BPM), and model-based management (MBM), and gives you a good overview of these technologies, this is more a book about structuring the agile enterprise from a business perspective.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090204.html

Risk Boredom and Risk Blindness: The Uncommon Common Concerns

29 Jan 2009 19:12:28 GMT

Pritchard, Carl | E-Mail Advisors | 29 January 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business-IT Strategies

There's a compelling phenomenon that happens with the commonplace aspects of our lives. The boredom that is frequently associated with the average concerns in our day-to-day existence evolves into a willing ignorance that those concerns even exist. In our cars, we sometimes become oblivious to the fact that speeding inherently carries with it a higher level of risk. In our workplaces, we accept the little warning signs (client complaints, team members' missed meetings, excessive e-mail traffic on a single topic, etc.) as being part of the normal operating procedures. In many cases, we remain oblivious to these until they explode into something far more dramatic. The car spins out of control on a wet patch of road. The customer calls us in, threatening to cancel our long-standing agreements. And while we're completely surprised by these crises, we shouldn't be. An outsider looking in would have been surprised that we were surprised. The warning signs were there. How could we be surprised?

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2009/erm090129.html

Service-Oriented Viewpoints

29 Jan 2009 19:10:30 GMT

Allen, Paul | Executive Updates | 29 January 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Such service-oriented factors as business capability, process networks, core competency, and collaboration in the global marketplace tend to be ignored in many business process management (BPM) projects. At the same time, a service-oriented paradigm shift in BPM is not practically possible for most organizations. This Executive Update presents a simple, accessible approach called "service-oriented viewpoints" as a way of gaining early measurable business value from service-oriented architecture (SOA) through reuse of existing services.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2009/bitu0901.html

For Strategic IT Planning, Focus on the Demand Side

28 Jan 2009 19:06:54 GMT

Benson, Robert J.; Bugnitz, Tom | E-Mail Advisors | 28 January 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

A good friend of ours who is very active in business strategic thinking in many industries has mentioned to us that only 20% (or less) of business strategies and goals actually are worked on. This squares with our own experience in working with more than 100 companies worldwide. How can we plan IT to support business strategies if 80% of those strategies do not in fact drive business activities? On the other hand, we know that business managers undertake many initiatives that are not, strictly speaking, connected to the business strategy statements. What this does, of course, is complicate strategic IT planning; exactly what should strategic IT planning link to and be driven by? It doesn't sound like it should be "business strategy."

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090128.html

Aesthetic Coherence: Value Judgments About Intrinsic Principals

22 Jan 2009 18:59:44 GMT

Devin, Lee | E-Mail Advisors | 22 January 2009 | Innovation; Business-IT Strategies

To make something new, you have to decide when it's done. If it's really new, it's unique, and you don't have anything to base a decision on but the thing itself. So you're in exactly the same position as an artist deciding on closure. Michelangelo once described sculpture according to the precepts of disegno: approach the block of marble and take away everything that isn't a horse. When he made the statue of David, he took away everything not David. That's a process very like innovation: as he decided what was and was not David, decided what to take away and what to leave in, his model wasn't a human, but the proportions (form) of the emerging statue. You can check this by looking at almost any part of David. The feet, for instance, or the hands. They aren't human; but they're perfectly David, perfect for an image 17 feet tall meant to be viewed from below.

http://www.cutter.com/content/innovation/fulltext/advisor/2009/iea090122.html

Cutter Council Missed Point in 'Cheaper, Better, Faster' Debate

22 Jan 2009 18:57:39 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 22 January 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Business-IT Strategies; Innovation

While I am normally not one for tilting at windmills, I do have to take on the October 2008 Cutter Council opinion against the "cheaper, better, faster" (CBF) philosophy. In their 7-0 opinion (see "The Cheaper and Faster Tailspin," Vol. 9, No. 10), members of the Cutter Business Technology Council, including Christine Davis, Tom DeMarco, Mark Seiden, Ken Orr, Lou Mazzucchelli, Tim Lister, and Rob Austin, argued eloquently against CBF but failed to draw attention to the central concept of productivity, which they ought to have done.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090122.html

Facing Decimated Ranks? Rightplace Those Who Remain

21 Jan 2009 18:55:47 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 21 January 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

In this environment, it can be difficult to increase trust and encourage the right level of risk taking and challenging of the status quo, which, ironically, is so desperately needed in difficult times. IT leaders would be wise to understand that while emotions run high in these difficult times, these emotions serve as a potential source of energy and a catalyst for change, provided the emotions are focused properly.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090121.html

Business-IT Alignment (Again)

19 Jan 2009 18:50:56 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. | Executive Updates | 19 January 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Business-IT alignment is a broad vision that has been debated endlessly since the 1960s. It embraces a wide range of areas and, although other terminology has been suggested, the debate remains the same. The business environment continues to evolve and, as part of that evolution, the relationship between business and IT processes must also change. IT continues to grow in importance in every area of business, promoting efficiency, enabling e-business, and integrating different processes across the enterprise. The result is that the relationship between business and IT is constantly shifting, and it is important to refocus on this relationship from time to time to ensure that requirements are being adequately met.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2008/bitu0824.html

Seizing the Moment: Assessing the Opportunities for M&As

14 Jan 2009 16:14:03 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 14 January 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) -- and even divestitures -- represent opportunities to reengineer technology acquisition, deployment, and support. Like other major corporate events (such as missing earnings estimates five quarters in a row), M&As can be exploited to make decisions that somehow get endlessly tabled in the routine ebb and flow of many companies.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090114.html

Estimating Size of Software Package Implementations: Using Package Points -- Part II

14 Jan 2009 16:11:34 GMT

Chaturvedi, Atul; Ram Prasad Vadde; Ranjan, Rajeev; Munikrishnan, Mani | Executive Updates | 14 January 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

In the first Executive Update of this two-part series, we discussed the challenges with existing size measures used to estimate the effort required to implement an enterprise solution product, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP).1 Inaccurate effort estimation is often cited as one of the key reasons for time and cost overruns on such projects, but in the past, there has not been any standard framework to use to estimate the size of a package implementation project. In Part I, we described factors that influence package implementation and proposed a "package points" sizing methodology.

In this concluding Update, we describe the input required and the statistical model used to calculate package points.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2008/bitu0823.html

Asset Management in Focus

7 Jan 2009 15:54:54 GMT

Benson, Robert J.; Bugnitz, Tom | E-Mail Advisors | 07 January 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Although we in the IT professions don't eat our young, we certainly do take clear concepts and make them completely vague and less than understandable -- to the point of making the concept unusable. Asset management is one of these concepts. Through the normal IT developmental processes, asset management now means almost anything we want -- ranging from project portfolio management to help desk support tools to procurement. In the asset management universe, we find SAP modules, ITIL components (e.g., configuration management), software of all kinds, professional organizations, consulting practices, and so on and so on.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090107.html

Bailing Out IT's Infrastructure

7 Jan 2009 15:53:33 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 07 January 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

This is the time of year when everyone makes resolutions and projects what they'd like to see in the new year. As I thought about what CIOs could wish for, it occurred to me that they might wish for inclusion of US President Elect Barack Obama's Infrastructure Investment Program for 2009. Clearly, we need to "invest" in roads, bridges, and electrical and telecommunications networks; why not some investment in one of the most significant portions of the economy: business enterprise architecture infrastructures and knowledge management.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090107.html

Surviving What Are Sure to Be Interesting Times

6 Jan 2009 15:46:51 GMT

Berry, John | Executive Updates | 06 January 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

"May you live in interesting times" is an ironic Chinese curse about to be experienced by more than a few CIOs in the US. Our truly terrifying current economic climate is sure to impact IT organizations profoundly as organizations call on business units to do more, maybe far more, with less. In the name of sound IT management, CIOs are reminded to consider the most common sources of technology management failures that happen in the good times because in bad times like these, managerial vulnerabilities are often magnified.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2008/bitu0822.html