Cutter Consortium: Enterprise Suite

The Voices We Value

3 Jul 2009 03:13:13 GMT

Pritchard, Carl | E-Mail Advisors | 02 July 2009 | Agile Project Management

Making business decisions is never easy. It becomes progressively more complicated as those around us offer their "two cents' worth" about how we should act or what practices we should adopt. And the sheer number of those around us sometimes means that we receive input from a host of different parties, all with different perspectives. The challenge for organizations is to determine which approaches they should apply and which voices they should listen to in making the critical decisions about implementing and adapting project management practices within their organizations. A recent Cutter survey highlights the value of trusting those we have chosen to trust historically and the limited amount of sway that most outside forces should have (and do have) on our business decisions. The analysis of the survey results presented in this Advisor focuses on the drive to evolve from a business perspective and the voices that we see as having the greatest inherent value.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2009/apm090702.html

I'm Not a Risk Manager, I'm a Risk Ecologist

3 Jul 2009 03:12:30 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 02 July 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

This past week, a number of intersecting risk-rich related news stories caught my eye. First, there was the ongoing investigation into the loss of Air France Flight 447 and its 228 passengers and crew. There is increasing suspicion that the plane was brought down by a combined problem involving "failure" of its in-flight computer system, which caused the crew to take maneuvers that could not be handled by the composite materials used to build the Airbus 330 aircraft.

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2009/erm090702.html

Alpha Raises Level of Research

3 Jul 2009 03:11:28 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 02 July 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

In my last Trends Advisor (see "Wolfram|Alpha and the Future of Mathematics," 11 June 2009), I suggested that Wolfram|Alpha, which I'll refer to simply as "Alpha," was a potentially game-changing event in mathematical and scientific education. As luck would have it, I was at a Semantic Technology conference last week, and one of the sessions involved an open interview with one of Alpha's lead developers. Nothing that I found out there changed my fundamental view of the importance of Alpha and other similar tools, but it did cause me to go back and investigate Alpha in more depth. One of the things that caught my attention was an interview with Stephen Wolfram himself regarding the thought process behind this new tool.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090702.html

Making Sense of Agile Design Practices

3 Jul 2009 03:10:51 GMT

Bossavit, Laurent | Executive Updates | 02 July 2009 | Agile Project Management

What, then, is a team effectively applying agile design practices supposed to look like? Formulating an answer requires addressing two common misconceptions about design: (1) it must always precede development; and (2) it is the work of one person. In this Executive Update, we will examine agile design as an ongoing activity carried out by teams, and this will give us valuable hints as to where to look to catch design happening "in the wild."

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2009/apmu0912.html

The New Risk Equation: Why Strategic Risk Management Is Now So Important

3 Jul 2009 03:10:07 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | Executive Updates | 02 July 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

Projects, programs, portfolios, and other corporate initiatives are about identifying and managing risk. But what about the risks connected with avoiding initiatives? What if all of the initiatives an organization avoids are strategic?

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/updates/2009/ermu0907.html

We Need to Improve Financial Management in IT Governance

2 Jul 2009 03:09:24 GMT

Benson, Robert J.; Bugnitz, Tom | E-Mail Advisors | 01 July 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

We've recently spent considerable time in IT organizations in the US and in Latin America dealing with aspects of IT financial management. Through the Cutter Benchmark Review, we've also conducted studies for four years about IT budgeting (see "Linking IT Budgeting, Governance, and Value," Vol. 8, No. 7; "The IT Budget: The Centerpiece of IT Governance," Vol. 7, No. 8; and "IT Budgeting: A Management Perspective," Vol. 6, No. 8; take this year's survey, here). In all of this, we've come to understand that IT financial management, including budgeting and cost practices, is a very large and important component of IT governance.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090701.html

Risk Assessment Gets to the Bottom of Security Basics

2 Jul 2009 03:08:40 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 01 July 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

In recent Advisors, I have talked about data security and perimeter security (see "Are You at the Controls? Do You Know Where Your Data Is?" 10 June 2009 and "Is Your Perimeter Secure?" 17 June 2009). The feedback I have received indicates that it would be useful to talk about some basic concepts and terminology of security. So let's start with this question: "What is security?"

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090701.html

PowerPoint Soufflé Delite

2 Jul 2009 03:07:02 GMT

Robertson, Bill | E-Mail Advisors | 01 July 2009 | Cutter IT Journal

In a study completed by Edward Tufte, the American satistician and design expert, results showed that PowerPoint slides used only 30%-40% of the available space for unique content. The remaining space was occupied by chart junk -- see recipe, above. This low-resolution format produces sparse content per slide that inhibits spatial reasoning. Consequently, audience members are subjected to a barrage of content-lacking slides and left grasping for context that cannot be offered by the limited space available on each slide.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2009/itj090701.html

Who Benefits Most from Adopting SaaS?

7 Jul 2009 03:06:29 GMT

Xin, Mingdi | E-Mail Advisors | 01 July 2009 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

The software as a service (SaaS) model has matured as a viable strategic alternative to conventional software service options. With SaaS, customers do not own software but instead share a common code base and set of data definitions that clients are unable to modify. Customer-specific configurations and functional extensions are logically separated from the common code, and customers maintain them. Integration is made through common Web services APIs. All customers are running on the same version of the software; SaaS vendors decide and implement new developments and keep all applications on their most current versions. The technical and managerial characteristics of SaaS have important implications for a customer's adoption decision:

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2009/src090701.html

As SaaS Provider Quits, What Happens to its Data?

1 Jul 2009 03:05:42 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 30 June 2009 | Business Intelligence; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

After almost four years, BI software as a service (SaaS) provider LucidEra is calling it quits. LucidEra, which was founded in 2005, offers a number of on-demand BI applications, including those for customer lead insight and pipeline and order analysis. Unable to secure a new round of funding in what can only be termed a very unfriendly lending climate, LucidEra has reached the point where company officers are looking for someone to buy its intellectual property. When discussing this unfortunate development with friends and colleagues over the past few days, I kept hearing the same question: "So what happens to the customers' data?"

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090630.html

Evaluating BPM Technologies

30 Jun 2009 03:05:01 GMT

Teti, Frank | Executive Updates | 29 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Business process management (BPM) is a business science applied by organizations to evaluate various aspects of how work is completed. Today, the term implies incorporating methods based on technology and nontechnology for completing that work. This term is also used by some vendors to describe new and/or updated products that provide automated workflow technology, for the most part, within a service-oriented architecture (SOA). This Executive Update discusses a decision framework for evaluating BPM technologies.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2009/eau0912.html

Embracing an Unlikely Notion: Software Maintenance As Innovation

26 Jun 2009 03:04:01 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 25 June 2009 | Innovation; Agile Project Management; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

"Maintenance has lived in a twilight world, hardly visible in the formal accounts of societies make of themselves," or so wrote David Edgerton in his The Shock of the Old (Profile Books: 2006). The same could be said of the software world.

http://www.cutter.com/content/innovation/fulltext/advisor/2009/iea090625.html

Achieving Agile Software: Fail to Scale -- Prepare to Fail

26 Jun 2009 03:03:17 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 25 June 2009 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Architecture

In a recent Agile Product & Project Management E-Mail Advisor (see "Service-Oriented Agile Projects -- Contradiction or Necessity?" 4 June 2009), I assert that "agile projects have often struggled with delivering ... long-term quality and scalability." Cutter Senior Consultant Jens Coldewey responds, "I would consider projects that suffer from severe architectural problems not being agile almost by definition," concluding, "Well, if you don't use agile development, you won't get agile software. It's that simple" ("Agility, Architectural Quality Are Not in Conflict," 11 June 2009).

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2009/apm090625.html

The Future of Nostalgia: Staying Alive Digitally

26 Jun 2009 03:02:20 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 25 June 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Since mankind has been making images of things, mankind has seen those images fade. Our perception of the past is deeply reliant on our perception of the artifact that represents the past. Aged, yellow photographs in our hands match the mystic past of faded memories in our minds. Grainy, worn-out super-eight home movies from the 1970s leave much obscured. Remember old and overplayed vinyl records? Their scratchiness revealed their age; while charming, they degraded the quality of the sound. The 20th century is not alone in this. Each prior century has had decrepit artifacts inherited from distant ancestors.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090625.html

The Evolution of BPM: Part I -- Workflow to Process

26 Jun 2009 03:01:31 GMT

Allen, Paul | Executive Updates | 25 June 2009 | Business-IT Strategies

Despite the branding, business process management (BPM) is actually not a new initiative but has evolved out of previous generations of both technology and practices. In this Executive Update, we examine the evolution of BPM using graphical examples. In particular, we provide advice about where (and where not) approaches and artifacts from previous generations can be leveraged in new scenarios, and suggest strategies for moving ahead.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/updates/2009/bitu0908.html

Team Chemistry: Are the Individuals in the Parties Well Suited?

26 Jun 2009 03:00:39 GMT

Cullen, Sara | Executive Updates | 25 June 2009 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

We all know by now that the relationship between the parties of an outsourcing contract is paramount to the success of the deal. While there is a fair bit of advice out there, it is mainly process-orientated (e.g., communicate frequently, plan together, have improvement workshops). But what if you genuinely do not like your counterpart on the other side?

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/updates/2009/srcu0906.html

Recruiting in a Digital Age

26 Jun 2009 02:59:41 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. | Executive Updates | 25 June 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Recruiting is an important and sometimes overlooked portion of the IT portfolio. Its functions orchestrate the talent available to the firm and ensure that the right people with the right training are available to perform the jobs required for the firm to succeed. The processes falling within this area affect both the IT department and the corporation at large.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2009/bttu0908.html

On-the-Cheap Insourcing Frustrates Outsourcing

25 Jun 2009 02:58:56 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 24 June 2009 | Business-IT Strategies; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

Conventional thought suggests that in many cases, organizations can take costs out of their IT infrastructure management by transferring those activities to a vendor that performs those activities cheaper and better than they can. Too frequently, IT shops wishing to do this get sticker shock on the cost of moving these low-value activities to an outsourced service provider.

Why the sticker shock? Shouldn't a vendor with the proper scale and expertise be able to do the same for less?

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090624.html

EA Clouding Over? Goals to Get Lean and Mean

25 Jun 2009 02:58:11 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 24 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

In today's tight economic environment, business executives may well see "the cloud" as the answer to their cost-cutting prayers. Bloated and unproductive EA initiatives are rightly going to receive short shrift in this climate -- eclipsed behind the cloud, if you'll pardon the metaphor. How can EA get both leaner and meaner while remaining relevant to the business agenda?

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090624.html

Keep This in View: Are You Still Providing Value?

25 Jun 2009 02:57:29 GMT

Brosseau, Jim | E-Mail Advisors | 24 June 2009 | Cutter IT Journal

It can be difficult enough to get a project team to focus on delivery of value when we are starting a project; it is all that much tougher to remain focused on this prize as the project plays out. One of the main reasons for this is that the tools we use to manage projects tend to divert our focus elsewhere.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2009/itj090624.html

Fallout in Iran: Mining Social Unrest in a Web. 2.0 World

24 Jun 2009 02:56:37 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 23 June 2009 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The use of social networking sites by activists covering the recent Iranian election protests is a vivid example of how Web 2.0 can upset even the staunchest government's attempts to stifle dissent and the spread of "non-official" (i.e., uncensored) information. Twitter, in particular, has found extensive use by activists inside and outside of Iran, as well as by ordinary people who are worried or interested in what is happening inside the country. There has been so much of this activity, in fact, that the US Department of State asked Twitter management (which complied with the request) to hold off on carrying out scheduled systems maintenance in order to avoid any possibility of disrupting or limiting what has essentially become a key communications and organizational tool for Iranian postelection activism.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090623.html

Should Managers Be Quails During Planning Poker?

18 Jun 2009 20:13:14 GMT

Williams, Laurie | E-Mail Advisors | 18 June 2009 | Agile Project Management

In recent years, many agile software development teams have used a Planning Poker practice to estimate the effort needed to complete the features chosen to be implemented in an iteration and/or release. Planning Poker is "played" by the team as a part of the iteration planning meeting, which is attended by product managers, project managers, software developers, testers, usability engineers, security engineers, and others. With Planning Poker, the customer or marketing representative explains each feature. In turn, the team discusses the work involved in fully implementing and testing a feature until they believe that they have enough information to estimate the effort. Each team member then privately and independently estimates the effort in "story points" (unit-less measures of effort relative to previously completed requirements). Team members are constrained to estimating from a set of possible story point values (most commonly 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, and 100) that are the relative amount of effort necessary for the implementation, including software development, usability engineering, testing, and document authoring/updating. The team members reveal their estimates simultaneously. Next, the team members with the lowest and highest estimates explain their estimates to the group. Discussion ensues until the group is ready to re-vote on their estimates. More estimation rounds take place until the team can come to a consensus on a quantity of story points for the requirement. Most often, only two (maybe three) Planning Poker rounds are necessary on a particular feature before teams reach consensus.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2009/apm090618.html

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

Steering Business Technology Management in a 2.0 World

18 Jun 2009 20:03:26 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 18 June 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

The world of business technology is dramatically changing. Everything about it is changing, including what we acquire, deploy, support, the way we support it, and -- perhaps most important -- the way we manage it all.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090618.html

The Contract Blueprint: Creating Agreements that Will Work in Practice

18 Jun 2009 20:01:45 GMT

Cullen, Sara | Executive Updates | 18 June 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

Imagine you and I are building a house without drawings or specifications, instead relying on various tradespeople to use their experience to build what we have in mind. So the concreter lays the slab where he think is best, given his experience; the plumber puts the piping where she thinks it should go. The electrician wires the house as he deems it should be, and so on. They've all done this before, so there is no need for a plan, really. You and I don't know how to build a house anyway, and I'm sure we can both live in whatever they come up with, right?

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/updates/2009/ermu0906.html

Watch Out! Most Outsourcing Involves PII

17 Jun 2009 20:00:12 GMT

Herold, Rebecca | E-Mail Advisors | 17 June 2009 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Personally identifiable information (PII) plays a key role and is involved within many business processes. PII is stored in an extremely large number of corporate systems and data storage repositories. Because of all the business processes and storage locations, every decision to outsource a business process or business activity may involve access to PII, or the transfer of PII from the organization to a third party, and possibly even subcontracted parties.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2009/src090617.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

Is Your Perimeter Secure?

17 Jun 2009 19:58:09 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 17 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Is your perimeter secure? The answer to that is simple: NO. As business has become more distributed, outsourcing has gone global, supply chains are more connected, employees have become teleworkers, customers demand better information, and so on, we have systematically punched holes into perimeter security until it now resembles Swiss cheese.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090617.html

Emotional Consciousness and Its Impact on Agility

17 Jun 2009 19:57:07 GMT

Sampath, Kalpana | E-Mail Advisors | 17 June 2009 | Cutter IT Journal

When all resources are well in place, what is it that stalls a project, drawing extra time and energy? Why so managers have to remind teammates so often to keep their emotions in check? Most leadership workshops seek to understand emotional intelligence and to teach a whole set of emotional management skills. Is there truly clarity on what emotions are and how to live with them?

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2009/itj090617.html

Greenplum's Enterprise Data Cloud

16 Jun 2009 19:56:17 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 16 June 2009 | Business Intelligence

Data warehousing database vendor Greenplum has launched what the company calls its "Enterprise Data Cloud" (EDC) initiative. EDC builds on Greenplum's flagship massively parallel data warehousing database -- optimized for analytics and dynamic scalability -- and the concept of self-service provisioning.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090616.html

BI Information Interoperability: From the Database to the Data Stream

16 Jun 2009 19:54:29 GMT

Di Maio, Paola | Executive Updates | 16 June 2009 | Business Intelligence

The capabilities delivered by BI technologies, which provide computational power, speed, and capacity, do not always address and resolve the issues derived from the lack of interoperability of disparate data sets. While information at the core is always some form of data, enterprises understand the importance of capturing intelligence from unstructured information where it is known as "knowledge," which by definition comes from disparate, unsorted, and nonhomogeneous sources.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/updates/2009/biau0908.html

Keys to a Smart Innovation Process

16 Jun 2009 19:53:19 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. | Executive Updates | 16 June 2009 | Innovation

It has become increasingly evident that companies that fail to establish adequate innovation processes are likely to suffer in the current recession. As economic conditions bite deeper into revenues from existing products, new products will not be available to replace them, and ultimately, the company will fall behind the competition. While discussion of innovation tends to focus on idea creation, the real source of new opportunities lies in the processes that further innovation and bring ideas forward to completed new products, new services, or new ways of doing business.

http://www.cutter.com/content/innovation/fulltext/updates/2009/ieau0906.html

Agile and SOA Together: Explore -- But Specify

16 Jun 2009 19:52:20 GMT

Allen, Paul | Executive Updates | 16 June 2009 | Agile Project Management

One of the greatest strengths of agile methodologies is that exploratory techniques involving collaboration between people -- the very fabric of software development -- take center stage. At the same time, from a service-oriented point of view, rigor is needed in specifying services and the components used to implement them. All too often we see unhelpful division between agile and service-oriented architecture (SOA) camps. Once we get beyond the rhetoric of methodology, we find a much more basic problem is at work. Two quite fundamental modes of human activity -- exploration and specification -- are commonly divorced or, worse, still muddled. In this Executive Update, we provide advice for avoiding this pitfall, for getting the best out of exploration and specification techniques, working alongside each other.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2009/apmu0911.html

The Barriers to Innovation in Outsourcing Relationships

11 Jun 2009 19:51:19 GMT

Ertel, Danny | E-Mail Advisors | 11 June 2009 | Innovation

Outsourcing is no longer a novel or innovative strategy. It has evolved into just another choice a manager can make as he or she thinks about how to do more and better with less. As the industry has matured, its actors have gotten better at defining sourcing strategies, crafting deals, surviving transitions, and putting in place the capabilities to manage complex, multiyear relationships. Yet in survey after survey, we can still see significant levels of dissatisfaction, in particular with regard to the value realized after the initial cost savings:

http://www.cutter.com/content/innovation/fulltext/advisor/2009/iea090611.html

Wolfram|Alpha and the Future of Mathematics

11 Jun 2009 19:49:00 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 11 June 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

After a number of years of near-total dominance of the Internet search space by Google, there suddenly are a number of major new announcements. Microsoft, for example, has just introduced its new search engine called Bing, which is intended to be a more "semantic" search with greater focus on presenting the results to make them more relevant and useful to the user. And Wolfram Research has announced a tool called Wolfram|Alpha that I believe will change the face of mathematical teaching and research -- as well as science and engineering -- for perhaps decades to come.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090611.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

Are You at the Controls? Do You Know Where Your Data Is?

10 Jun 2009 19:43:38 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 10 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business Intelligence; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

Perhaps you remember the public service campaign from 1960s television that went something like, "It's 10 pm. Do you know where your children are?" For IT, we could rephrase it as; "It's 2009. Do you know where your data is?" You probably don't, especially if it's in the hands of your partners or outsourcers. So, the answer to the question in the title of this Advisor is most likely, "I don't know."

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090610.html

Companies Making Cautious Moves to Social Networks

10 Jun 2009 19:42:35 GMT

Coleman, David | E-Mail Advisors | 10 June 2009 | Cutter IT Journal

People seem to have an innate need to be social -- to connect to each other and be part of the herd, both for safety and productivity. Today, the herd is much more geographically distributed and may consist of a social network, an online community, or other ongoing collaborative interactions.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2009/itj090610.html

Mining Social Media Via Sentiment Analysis

9 Jun 2009 19:41:27 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 09 June 2009 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I've been researching the state of the art in mining social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp, CNET Reviews, Epicurious, IMDb, TripAdvisor, Yahoo! Finance, Amazon, and WebMD. Today, cutting-edge organizations -- especially their marketing and PR departments -- are struggling to make sense out of what's being said about their companies and products on a variety of social media sites, sites that are now responsible for incredible amounts of user-generated content. Basically, you can consider these sites interactive forums offering a wealth of information expressing consumer sentiment, preferences, and trends, which, in effect, are helping to shape consumer behavior.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090609.html

Open Source Java Frameworks: Development/Testing, Middleware, and Comprehensive Frameworks

5 Jun 2009 16:21:10 GMT

Welsh, Tom | Executive Updates | 05 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

In Part V, I move on to the findings for development/testing, middleware, and comprehensive OSJFs. Then, before summing up the series and to put the OSJF findings into context, we take a look at the non-Java frameworks that respondents have been using.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2009/eau0911.html

Service-Oriented Agile Projects -- Contradiction or Necessity?

4 Jun 2009 16:20:12 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 04 June 2009 | Agile Project Management

A harsh economic recession calling for renewed cost reduction with an emphasis on tactical solution-delivery projects causes concerns over the effectiveness of enterprise service-oriented architecture (SOA) and puts agile methodologies back in the limelight. SOA and agile are commonly seen as opposites, but opposites that don't attract. On the one hand, agile emphasizes a short game that is about human interplay, simplicity, speed, and transparency, while SOA is inherently a long game that is about discipline, commonality, formality, and specification. Each approach has its camps of followers and -- it must be said -- is not without some success.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2009/apm090604.html

No More Gorilla Dust: Autopsy of GM

4 Jun 2009 16:19:18 GMT

Charette, Robert N. | E-Mail Advisors | 04 June 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

So long to the gorilla dust at GM. That's what billionaire entrepreneur founder of EDS and ex-General Motors executive Ross Perot called the annual optimistic projections of GM executives during the 1980s, as it continued to lose market share. "When gorillas fight, they throw dust in the air to distract one another," Perot said.

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2009/erm090604.html

When It Makes Sense to Throw Caution to the Wind

4 Jun 2009 16:18:25 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 04 June 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Technology adoption depends on context. When a company is in trouble, it tries lots of things to regain its competitive edge. When an industry sector is in trouble, it reinvents itself. But when trouble fails to distinguish among companies, sectors, or even continents, then drastic steps are necessary to right the ship. These days we find ourselves in a major economic crisis. Some companies are fighting themselves as they try to adapt to falling revenue and shrinking profits. Technology acquisition, deployment, and support are in the crosshairs of many companies. With technology budgets ranging anywhere from 2% to 10% of gross revenue, companies are understandably looking for ways to reduce technology costs -- despite the cultural idiosyncrasies that sometimes keep them from helping themselves.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090604.html

Why Vendor Management Is an Oxymoron

3 Jun 2009 16:17:24 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 03 June 2009 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In the world in which we live, a world that changes almost daily, there are truths and untruths. There's hype, and there's reality. There are technologies that work, and there are technologies that stay forever in the trough of disillusionment. There are subtleties and nuances. There are smart people and nasty people. Let's look at one of the perceptual anomalies of our world or, if you prefer, a dirty little secret. Vendor management.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2009/src090603.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

The Cloud Machine: Some Tips to Get Behind the Haze

3 Jun 2009 16:15:40 GMT

Seiden, Mark | E-Mail Advisors | 03 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

"The cloud" is important, yes, but in my view it isn't rocket science (or even atmospheric science). I think of it as just another step in outsourcing and pushing everything into a commodity, which for me creates only "modified rapture."

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090603.html

Enterprise Collaboration Architecture Webinar

3 Jun 2009 16:14:46 GMT

Rosen, Mike | Webinars/Multimedia | 03 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Collaboration is a hot topic within Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technologies. It seems that everybody wants it, but what does it really mean for an enterprise? How can collaboration help improve internal processes and development? And how can it improve interactions with customers and partners? In this Webinar, Mike Rosen, Director of Cutter's Enterprise Architecture practice, first looks at what we mean by collaboration and why we do it. Then, he looks at the impact on traditional business transaction processing when we try to add collaboration. Mike will discuss a detailed example of an extended business transaction and the benefits it can deliver, and finally he'll take a look at the application architecture necessary to integrate Enterprise 2.0 technologies into real business transactions at an enterprise level. Join Mike Rosen for this hour-long, interactive webinar. Ask questions, get answers. Discover the opportunities opened by Enterprise Collaboration Architecture, consider some approaches, and anticipate the obstacles.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/webinar/2009/enterprisecollaborationarchitecture.html

Key to Encouraging Planning Lies in Communication

3 Jun 2009 16:13:53 GMT

Phillips, Dwayne | E-Mail Advisors | 03 June 2009 | Cutter IT Journal

Plans are important to me; they are not important to everyone. The same is true of many intellectual products in our workplaces. One challenge for managers is to arrange situations where the right people become interested enough to think and communicate their thoughts.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2009/itj090603.html

Consider Casting Into the System S Stream for "Perpetual Analysis"

2 Jun 2009 16:12:53 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 02 June 2009 | Business Intelligence; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

IBM has announced the availability of what the company is calling "stream computing" software that can analyze high volumes of continuously streaming data -- both structured and unstructured -- in real time. "System S" is for implementing what IBM developers call "perpetual analytics." It uses a new streaming architecture and mathematical algorithms to create a forward-looking analysis of data, and to continuously refine its findings as additional data is made available.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090602.html

Adopting the SaaS Model for Business Applications

1 Jun 2009 16:11:01 GMT

Xin, Mingdi | Executive Reports | 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/reports/2009/06/index.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

Software Product Support: Part II -- To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade

1 Jun 2009 16:09:18 GMT

Bennatan, E.M. | Executive Updates | 01 June 2009 | Agile Project Management

Consider this: if you could upgrade all the software on your computer for free, would you do it? It's not a trick question -- give it some thought for a moment. I posed the question at a forum in Chicago earlier this year, and some of the responses were quite intense. That was not what I had expected.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/updates/2009/apmu0910.html

Variation: Friend or Foe to Innovation?

28 May 2009 16:07:46 GMT

Austin, Robert D.; Ellyn, Lynne | E-Mail Advisors | 28 May 2009 | Innovation

Most people know that innovation requires time to think, reflect, experiment, fail, revise, and explore. But many have likely not contemplated how directly cost pressures can impact innovation efforts. Psychologist Donald T. Campbell developed a model of innovation in 1960 that can help us understand just what's at stake. The Campbell model was inspired by Darwinian evolution. It portrays innovation as a two-step process, as follows:

http://www.cutter.com/content/innovation/fulltext/advisor/2009/iea090528.html

Reduce Costs the Agile Way: Keep Value in View

28 May 2009 16:06:40 GMT

Highsmith, Jim | E-Mail Advisors | 28 May 2009 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

The Agile Triangle way of measuring performance can be useful in looking at business goals in new ways (the triangle involves value, quality, and constraints -- as introduced in my Advisor, "Flex Your Agile Triangle and Add Value," 30 April 2009). If the goal is reducing schedules, for example, metrics from agile projects have shown that improving quality has a great impact on schedule reduction. Focusing directly on schedules often has the direct opposite impact on schedules. Admonitions to "go faster" result in cutting quality corners, which in turn ends up lengthening schedules. So ironically, focusing on schedule yields longer schedules while focusing on quality yields shorter schedules.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2009/apm090528.html

For Hybrid Clouds, Fog of Confusion Is Burning Away

28 May 2009 16:05:28 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 28 May 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Enterprise Architecture

Most of the attention being paid to cloud computing has focused on public cloud providers, such as Amazon and Google, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors, such as Salesforce.com. However, based on my research, including feedback I've received from readers, I believe that the future of corporate IT, especially when it comes to larger companies, will be based on "hybrid clouds" -- those employing both public and private clouds to meet business goals.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090528.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

Part of the Process: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

27 May 2009 16:02:22 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | E-Mail Advisors | 27 May 2009 | Cutter IT Journal

It's not the technology, stupid; it's the processes. Processes are good, bad, ugly, or indifferent depending on how well -- or poorly -- you provide incentives to promote 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/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2009/itj090527.html

The Real Benefits of BI Search

26 May 2009 16:01:28 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 26 May 2009 | Business Intelligence

Last week, I discussed SAP AG's new Business Objects tool that combines BI reporting and analysis with functionality that is like an Internet search engine: SAP Business Objects Explorer (see "SAP Business Objects Explorer: BI Search Meets ERP, But Will It Accelerate Adoption of BI Search?," 19 May 2009). I also said that I thought the introduction of Explorer would lead to the greater acceptance of BI search tools among end-user organizations because it will help to validate the technology. Judging from the number of people who've contacted me regarding BI search, I think that Explorer is definitely generating increased interest in the technology.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090526.html

Outsourcing Strategies to Weather a Recession

1 May 2009 15:55:28 GMT

Cullen, Sara | Journals | 01 May 2009 | Cutter IT Journal

Even under normal circumstances, outsourcing presents many challenges for buyers and sellers. In the current economic climate, when the value-for-money proposition of outsourcing becomes skewed toward the money side of the equation, existing outsourcing deals and prospective ones face new and different challenges. Buyers will want to reduce the costs of current contracts and obtain substantial savings in new ones. Sellers can't afford to reduce existing prices given projections of decreased revenue plus the bigger discounts required to win new work. Can both parties achieve their financial goals while maintaining a good long-term relationship?

http://www.cutter.com/itjournal/fulltext/2009/05/index.html

Unlocking the Organizational Potential of Social Networking

1 May 2009 15:52:43 GMT

Piccoli, Gabriele | Journals | 01 May 2009 | Cutter Benchmark Review

Is there any opportunity for organizations seeking to benefit from their customers' use of social networks? How can organizations take advantage of the explosive growth of social networking? Here the answer is not so simple. For this reason, we focus this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review on this important and timely topic: organizational uses and opportunities in social networking.

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

Cloud Computing and Software as a Service: The Hyper, the Hype, and the Facts

1 Apr 2009 15:53:54 GMT

Piccoli, Gabriele | Journals | 01 April 2009 | Cutter Benchmark Review

This issue of Cutter Benchmark Review represents a classic example of what we attempt to do every month with this publication. We identify emergent, emerging, or consolidating trends of great interest to IT shops around the world, and then we bring to bear the many components of the "CBR machine" to benchmark them and provide tangible guidelines that our readers can immediately implement in their day-to-day operations. There are two critical components to our operation here at CBR: our expert contributors and the Cutter Consortium office. The office manages the madness that is putting together the monthly issue of a survey-based journal that benchmarks current trends with fresh data, including managing the survey creation process, collecting and organizing the questions produced by our experts, computing results, and editing and publishing the issue.

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

Architectural Challenges in Transforming to SaaS Solutions

22 May 2009 15:50:46 GMT

Markande, Krishna | Executive Updates | 22 May 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

To fully understand the advantages and challenges in software as a service (SaaS), we must analyze the emerging model thoroughly from the viewpoint of customers and independent software vendors (ISVs). The aim of such scrutiny is to reap the benefits and mitigate possible risks of SaaS.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2009/eau0910.html

Implementation Strategy for Portal Adoption

22 May 2009 15:49:44 GMT

Mutha, Mohit C. | Executive Updates | 22 May 2009 | Business Intelligence

Portals provide a common user interface (UI) platform for federating varied content and applications. In addition, portal server products offer out-of-the-box features such as personalization, security, and administrative control. The portal server also provides several customization hooks for layout, themes, skins, security, and so forth. Compared with building a custom Web application having these features, portal servers are an attractive choice for decentralized content and module management, configurable UI, personalization and customization, short time to market, and maintainability.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/updates/2009/biau0907.html

Managing Change Orders: Understanding Fixed Scope, Fixed Capacity

21 May 2009 15:48:50 GMT

Highsmith, Jim | E-Mail Advisors | 21 May 2009 | Agile Project Management

At the Cutter Summit 2009 conference in early May, I was talking with an executive from a company that contracts for large government projects. This company has been doing agile development but has often run into a common problem: governments and others often want vendors to be agile and adaptable, but also sign contracts with a fixed price and schedule. During development, when they ask for changes and the vendor tries to mitigate the impact of the change request, the agency staff responds, "You aren't being agile; isn't this an agile project?" I've run into this before. Customers want to push agility too far -- they don't want to make tradeoffs; they want something for free.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2009/apm090521.html

The Risks of Banking on Risk Certifications

21 May 2009 15:47:51 GMT

Pritchard, Carl | E-Mail Advisors | 21 May 2009 | Enterprise Risk Management & Governance; Agile Project Management

With the ongoing proliferation of certifications available to business professionals of every type, it's no surprise that risk management has popped into the picture in the cost, IT development, and project management communities. The Project Management Institute came first, last year unveiling the PMI-Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP®) certification as a new addition to its laundry list of professional marks. The Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering is not far behind, as it is currently in the throes of putting the finishing touches on its version of such a credential.

http://www.cutter.com/content/risk/fulltext/advisor/2009/erm090521.html

10 Trends in Rethinking IT Management in a 2.0 World

21 May 2009 15:46:53 GMT

Andriole, Steve | E-Mail Advisors | 21 May 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

Regardless of a company's objectives, it must invest in operational and strategic technology. Operational technology has obviously become commoditized as prices have dropped and the industry has consolidated, but if acquisition, deployment, and support best practices are ignored, all of the advantages of commoditization disappear. Strategic technology is discretionary technology -- the technology of choice -- that's selected based on specific business objectives. Good decisions here enable strategy; bad ones undermine it. Good management enables the business value of technology; bad management undermines IT.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090521.html

Retendering an Outsourcing Contract: Attracting New Entrants

20 May 2009 15:44:02 GMT

Cullen, Sara | E-Mail Advisors | 20 May 2009 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Many client organizations nearing the end of an outsourcing contract start to consider whether they should retender the deal. Yet for most, these deliberations are largely about whether or not to do so; very few go beyond the simple yes/no proposition to consider the "how." This is important because the odds are stacked against new entrants (bidders other than the incumbent provider) unless your organization does something about it, and your organization risks expending time and resources on what ends up being a pointless exercise.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/advisor/2009/src090520.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

Aiming for the Big Picture, EA Goes Beyond 3D

20 May 2009 15:40:43 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 20 May 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

For a long time, I have been advocating that the right analogy for enterprise architecture is urban/transportation planning versus building architecture. Now, while designing and building a single large building is a complex, difficult problem, what large IT organizations everywhere are faced with is not just developing or replacing individual systems, regardless of how difficult that that may be. Rather, they are managing networks or systems; in some cases networks of networks of systems. Enterprise architecture, like urban/transportation planning, is involved with trying to understand and shape the really big picture.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090520.html

Real Virtuality: Preparing for a Long-Term Paradigm Shift

20 May 2009 15:39:53 GMT

Sivan, Yesha Y. | E-Mail Advisors | 20 May 2009 | Cutter IT Journal

IT managers need to have a split personality: they must be both conservative and innovative. On the one hand, they have to maintain older systems and keep current processes working smoothly. On the other hand, they have to continually examine new IT technologies that can alter the business. Around 1990, a "game-changing" technology, the Internet, emerged. New businesses that embraced the Internet in innovative ways -- such as eBay, Amazon, and Google -- thrived. However, companies that failed to embrace the Internet early -- such as Tower Records, Barnes & Noble, and Rand McNally -- were less fortunate. Tower closed, Barnes & Noble missed the online business that now belongs to Amazon, and Rand McNally failed to capture the online mapping business.

http://www.cutter.com/content/itjournal/fulltext/advisor/2009/itj090520.html

Sourcing Criteria for SaaS

20 May 2009 15:38:57 GMT

Gangadharan, G.R. | Executive Updates | 20 May 2009 | Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Traditionally, software has been perceived as a product, requiring possession and ownership in order to receive the desired performance. The transition from software as a product to software as a service (SaaS) is reflected in the distribution of software, where an application is offered as a service to customers through the Internet. The SaaS approach can be viewed as a combination of application service provision and outsourcing.

http://www.cutter.com/content/sourcing/fulltext/updates/2009/srcu0905.html

Dirty Little Secrets

20 May 2009 15:38:02 GMT

Andriole, Stephen J. | Executive Updates | 20 May 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts

In the world in which we live, a world that changes almost daily, there are truths and untruths. There's hype, and there's reality. There are technologies that work, and there are technologies that stay forever in the trough of disillusionment. There are subtleties and nuances. There are smart people and nasty people.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/updates/2009/bttu0907.html

SAP Business Objects Explorer: BI Search Meets ERP, But Will It Accelerate Adoption of BI Search?

19 May 2009 15:37:01 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 19 May 2009 | Business Intelligence

SAP/Business Objects' representatives bill its new BI search tool as a way for companies to disseminate BI functionality throughout their organizations to business users -- a sort of "self-service" BI tool for nontechies that makes finding and analyzing information as easy as using Google or Yahoo! search. Business Objects Explorer is an impressive tool. But to date, use of BI search by end-user organizations has been limited. So will SAP throwing its weight behind Explorer lead to increased acceptance of BI search? Before attempting to answer this question, I first need to explain Explorer in more detail.

http://www.cutter.com/content/bia/fulltext/advisor/2009/bia090519.html

Leading for Competitive Advantage

14 May 2009 15:34:59 GMT

Davis, Christine | E-Mail Advisors | 14 May 2009 | Innovation

A business needs outstanding leadership to successfully navigate through today's complex, competitive world. Identifying and understanding the strategic orientation of your business toward customers and innovation is one thing; however, it is quite another to successfully reorient the organization in another direction. The organization will need a vision and someone to follow who will be brave enough to take on the risks of changing the status quo. The leadership has to be able to interface in a more sophisticated way with its employees, customers, and suppliers if it wants to empower them to become more involved in the value creation for their business. The executive leadership is responsible for guiding the organization through the strategic planning that will define the actions needed to achieve competitive advantage. The leadership has to involve the right people in this process and develop a vision that will inspire those involved to make the changes needed to be successful. The executive leadership will need to clearly communicate its expectations to employees so that they understand the role they are expected to play in the innovation process.

http://www.cutter.com/content/innovation/fulltext/advisor/2009/iea090514.html