Products

Helping us make sense of the management of large volumes of data, or "Big Data," is one of our favorite academic contributors. Richard T. Watson is the J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia (USA). Among other things, Rick is former President of the Association for Information Systems and the current Research Director for the Advanced Practices Council of the Society of Information Management, a forum of senior IS executives. Rick is a good friend and a real thinker, a person who is very willing to look at things differently, even if what he has to report is unpopular. He is very creative, and his work often has me scratching my head, saying, "I did not think of that!" Coauthoring with Rick in this issue is Research Assistant Tyler Williamson, a senior honors student at the University of Georgia pursuing a bachelor's degree in MIS.

Our view from the practice side in this issue is provided by April Reeve, Enterprise Architect and Program Manager for EMC Consulting. April brings to us more than 25 years' expertise in the financial services industry, with a plethora of practical knowledge in working with massive amounts of data. She is certified by Data Management Association International as a Data Management Professional (CDMP) and certified by ISACA in both Enterprise Governance of IT (CEGIT) and as an Information Systems Auditor (CISA).

Published: April 2011, 17 pages, PDF format

Authors: Gabriele Piccoli, Editor; Richard T. Watson, Tyler Williamson, April Reeve

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

The contrast between the beauty of the small and the requirements of the big generates systemic tension in many software projects, organizations, and companies. Resolving this conflict is the focus of this Cutter IT Journal issue, Big Agile, featuring insight from agile guru Israel Gat and his host of expert authors.

Table of Contents:

What Does It Mean to Be "Big"? The Agile Scaling Model by Scott Ambler. Explore eight scaling factors that individual teams will inevitably face in the course of doing Big Agile and why it is essential to use a disciplined approach that addresses the entire product delivery process to be successful.

Laying the Foundation for Big Agile Transformation by Dave Rooney. Find out how applying a complete rather than incremental approach to a product or system will bear continuous improvements -- starting by educating the team members, as well as the management, at all levels of the development and product management organizations.

To Be or Not to Be: That's the Leadership Question for Going "Big Agile" by David Spann. Based on a case study of the essential need for leadership in an agile transformation, you'll be provided with a blueprint for a large-scale agile rollout that you can apply to your own organization.

Big Anything Depends on the People: An Exploration of the Human Factor in Scaling Agile Methods by Tom Bragg. Explore the possibility that using a more "popular" software method such as agile attracts a more competitive and knowledgeable project team thereby increasing the chances of project success.

Big Agile Isn't "One Big Agile" by John Heintz. Examine some theories of management and technology -- encouraging learning and sharing across the organization -- that will make a big agile initiative much more likely to succeed.

Published: February 2012, 32 pages, PDF format

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The focus of business process management (BPM) has shifted from a documentation activity -- typically driven by IT -- to a business responsibility in which processes are monitored and managed against key process indicators, and capabilities are created to simulate processes directly from models. BPM is finally penetrating the business and IT cultures and is poised to help organizations achieve the elusive goal of the model-driven, real-time enterprise.

The Cutter IT Journal issue Business Process Management: The Missing Link Between Business and IT? offers advice and recommendations on how to employ BPM effectively to maximize business performance and help bridge the divide commonly found between business and IT. You'll receive insightful opinion on the best ways to understand and position BPM, and strategies for exploiting the strengths of this concept without falling prey to the hype.

• BPM: Just Another Buzzword or an Essential Business-IT Link? by Claude R. Baudoin.
• Business Process Management: The New Old Thing? by Paul Clermont. Learn why BPM often failed in the past and discover new requirements for BPM teams to succeed.
• The Business Analyst Skill Gap by Kevin Brennan. Explore the role of the "business analyst" and discover a method to assess and improve the business analyst's skills.
• What BPM Hat Are You Wearing? Perspectives on Business Process Management by Ian Gotts. Identify the four audiences for BPM and discuss the various models of the business and the connections that must exist between them.
• Value Chain Modeling: Linking Customer Value to Business Process Design and Automation by Fred Cummins. Consider business processes in the context of value chain analysis and focus on the delivery of customer value and optimizing processes across multiple lines of business.
• A Quantitative Approach to Process Improvement by Matthew Ganis and Lekha P. Panikulangara. Leverage the popularity of project retrospectives and apply them to measure and improve BPM efforts.
• Runtime Collaboration and Dynamic Modeling in BPM: Allowing the Business to Shape Its Own Processes on the Fly by Sandy Kemsley. Explore dynamic adaptation of processes on the fly and review two examples of products that include such capability.

Published: February 2010, 40 pages, PDF format

Author: Claude Baudoin

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

Table of Contents:

• Opening Statement
• The Town Planners of Enterprise Innovation
• Effective Customer Requirements Definition Using Business Architecture
• The Tale of Two BAs: Why Business Architecture Is the Business Analysis Practice's Best Friend
• A Capability-Based Approach to Strategic Transformational Initiatives
• Creating a New Multidisciplinary Cancer Center Using Business Architecture

Published: November 2011, 34 pages, PDF format

Authors: William Ulrich, Dan McClure, Carlos Villela, Andrew Guitarte, Neal McWhorter, Diana Krohn, Dr. Steven Libutti, Ron Zahavi

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

This report is also available as a PDF.

The report Business Architecture: Creating Game-Changing Opportunities for Your Organization by William Ulrich provides a rapid roadmap approach for establishing and socializing business architecture and introduces a deployment technique that your business architecture teams can use as a template for getting started.

This report will help you:

• Communicate the benefits of business architecture in business terms
• Apply business-driven transformation strategies, roadmaps, and funding models
• Leverage value streams in business transformation
• Utilize business capabilities to create a shared vocabulary between business and IT
• Build a successful business architecture team
• Adopt practice-based approaches to delivering innovative and effective business solutions

You'll learn why business executives should embrace the concept of business architecture and discover how value streams and capabilities provide the baseline for crafting common semantics for articulating current challenges and a business vision.

BONUS: This report also includes two case study approaches to using value streams in planning and deploying priority business initiatives. The first focuses on using value streams for rapid situation analysis and resolution, and the second focuses on enhancing the customer experience.

Published: January 2012, 50 pages, delivered in print, by post

Author: William Ulrich

... but is it better data? Has BI promised much more than the insight and business objectives it has actually delivered? In this issue we have five articles, with views from several of the BI hills and a couple from some of the valleys.

Published: June 2010, 40 pages, PDF format

Authors: Dave Higgins, Kas Kasravi, Bhuvan Unhelkar, Amit Tiwary, Jan-Paul Fillié, Ralph Menzano, and Martin Bauer

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

The new report Business-Oriented Service Management: A Roadmap for IT Cutter Senior Consultant Bill Keyworth lays out a roadmap that ties various levels of business maturity to prescriptions for IT action. It offers a business-oriented approach to maximizing the perception of IT effectiveness by using "business" language to tie IT deliverables to end-user objectives. This report uses both hypothetical scenarios and a real case study of a midsized energy utility to examine how you can improve business-IT alignment.

Table of Contents:

• Business-Oriented Service Management for IT
• Theory of Constraints Approach
• Using a BSM Maturity Model to Achieve Alignment
• The Acceptable Range of Business-IT Alignment: Scenarios for Success
• Case Study: Next Steps for Business-IT Alignment at a Midsized Utility
• Next Steps for Improving Business-IT Alignment

The report highlights specific recommendations to strengthen initiatives associated with each business maturity level. It provides guidelines for BSM achievement, case studies of BSM success, and recommendations for initiating your own unique path to BSM. Find out how to articulate IT's benefits in terms that are meaningful and measurable to the business executive, and make the next step for IT more intuitive and doable.

Order your copy of Business-Oriented Service Management: A Roadmap for IT today!

Published: August 2011, 16 pages, PDF format (also available in epub format.
Author: Bill Keyworth
Online resource center clients: Access this report online.

The new report Business-Oriented Service Management: A Roadmap for IT Cutter Senior Consultant Bill Keyworth lays out a roadmap that ties various levels of business maturity to prescriptions for IT action. It offers a business-oriented approach to maximizing the perception of IT effectiveness by using "business" language to tie IT deliverables to end-user objectives. This report uses both hypothetical scenarios and a real case study of a midsized energy utility to examine how you can improve business-IT alignment.

Table of Contents:

• Business-Oriented Service Management for IT
• Theory of Constraints Approach
• Using a BSM Maturity Model to Achieve Alignment
• The Acceptable Range of Business-IT Alignment: Scenarios for Success
• Case Study: Next Steps for Business-IT Alignment at a Midsized Utility
• Next Steps for Improving Business-IT Alignment

The report highlights specific recommendations to strengthen initiatives associated with each business maturity level. It provides guidelines for BSM achievement, case studies of BSM success, and recommendations for initiating your own unique path to BSM. Find out how to articulate IT's benefits in terms that are meaningful and measurable to the business executive, and make the next step for IT more intuitive and doable.

Order your copy of Business-Oriented Service Management: A Roadmap for IT today!

Published: August 2011, 16 pages print, epub format (also available as PDF)
Author: Bill Keyworth
Online resource center clients: Access this report online.

The five articles in this issue of Cutter IT Journal are qualitatively different from the first six in that they provide alternative, or perhaps complementary, views on BPM's place in the enterprise.

Published: May 2010, 40 pages, PDF format

Authors: Claude Baudoin, David Wrigh, Tushar Hazra, Fred Cummins, Mike Gammag, Ricky Cheong and Eric Tsui

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

In the past few years, the managerial area of demand management, portfolio management, and IT governance have become more and more popular. Organizations are adopting these processes to better manage their expenses, reduce cost, and formalize an often chaotic relationship between IT and the business.

Published: February 2011, 13 pages, PDF format (also available in epub version)

Author: Rachel Mendelovich

Online resource center clients: Access this report online.

In the past few years, the managerial area of demand management, portfolio management, and IT governance have become more and more popular. Organizations are adopting these processes to better manage their expenses, reduce cost, and formalize an often chaotic relationship between IT and the business.

Published: February 2011, 13 pages print, epub format (also available in PDF version)

Author: Rachel Mendelovich

Online resource center clients: Access this report online.

In this edition of CITJ, our contributing authors have done an excellent job of presenting arguments for and examples of these three scenarios. They describe many of the challenges IT executives face in getting a seat at the M&A table, along with the consequences encountered when IT is not involved in M&A considerations from the beginning. They also offer practical suggestions on procedures and frameworks that, in their collective experience, have helped to achieve successful acquisition results and to improve IT's contribution to business value.

Published: October 2008, 33 pages, PDF format
Authors: Guest Editor, David Rasmussen, Ram Reddy, Michael Gentle, Steve Andriole, Pamela Hollington, Mike Sisco
Online resource center clients: Access the report online.

The new report Corporate Cyber Attacks, Threats and Security by Arun K. Majumdar -- based on facts, evidence, and real-world cases of cyber crime -- reveals how hackers communicate and do business as well as their methods of developing vulnerabilities and attacks.

This gripping, easy-to-read report will help you achieve clear situational awareness of your organization's security risk and equip you to take the steps required to mitigate those risks. You'll learn a host of critical issues you should be aware of to immediately assess your cyber security status.

This report will help you:

• Get insight into a hacker's most popular styles of attack via a 15-point countermeasures checklist
• Architect hard-to-hack corporate infrastructures and mitigate the risk of social engineering techniques used by hackers
• Understand the 5 critical areas that a chief/cyber security officer needs to set up as a baseline for cyber security operations
• Find out if your corporate culture enables cyber threats
• Mitigate cyber threats via easy-to-use executive checklists

You'll also explore executive liabilities and accountabilities, the top eight cyber security cases, and a multitude of need-to-know issues for immediate practical use.

Published: May 2011, 19 pages, PDF format

Author: Arun K. Majumdar

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

Books talk about the need to understand the mind of the highly technical employee. IT magazines have recently touted the "new" style of CIO that is shaping the organization within successful companies across the world. Despite the attention, many companies find they lack effective leadership among their midlevel and frontline managers. Our authors have differing views about what makes a good leader, but there is one common thread. The success of an IT organization is directly affected by the kind of leader you are -- and the kind of leaders you develop. As you read through these articles, I'm sure you will find many insights that apply to you or your team leaders.

Published: March 2010, 40 pages, PDF format

Authors: Bob Furniss, Pam Hager, Martin Bauer, Martha Lindeman, Johanna Rothman, Jurgen Appelo, Mark Woodman and Jason Bates

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

CITJ is unique in that it is written by IT professionals, not journalists. You get frank, honest accounts of what's working and what isn't -- from practitioners who are under the same pressures you are to get the job done. Each issue is devoted to a current IT topic and includes a thought-provoking introduction by a leading expert, followed by 5 or 6 in-depth articles that feature debate, case studies, research findings, and experience-based opinion. No other journal brings together so many cutting-edge thinkers, and lets them speak so bluntly on critical issues.

Cutter IT Journal will help you:

• Gain global perspectives and solutions to today's most critical business-technology issues
• Ensure your IT organization's success in a volatile economic climate
• Benefit from the lessons learned by others and identify pitfalls to avoid
• Develop well-supported arguments on how to get your organization to improve its IT operations
• Work smarter while under tighter constraints
• Put your IT concerns in a business context

But don't just take our word for it:

A great publication! Top writers writing about problems that IT managers have to deal with in a practical way. It's uncanny just how frequently the next issue has as its theme a problem I'm facing at the time!

— John Whiteing, Principal Information Consultant, Comalco Aluminum Ltd., George Town, Australia

I received a renewal notice after reading the Cutter IT Journal issue on the changing role of the CIO. The information was a just-in-time inspiration for our IT strategy exercise. CITJ provides such useful information and is such a great resource, how could I not renew?

— Bonnie Cooper PMP, IT Program Director, Massachusetts Medical Society

As a subscriber, you also receive the weekly Cutter IT Advisor -- an email bulletin delivered straight to your inbox. Each issue offers expert advice on hot-button issues such as IT leadership, cloud computing, risk management, organizational change, devops, enterprise architecture, agile project management, and more -- in a concise, easy-to-read format.

Gain cutting-edge and thoughtful debate on the complex issues around software development, project management, and IT management in the new global environment. Don't miss CITJ's upcoming issues.

Become a Cutter IT Journal subscriber today!

Subscriptions delivered outside of North America include a $100 shipping fee. CITJ is published 12 times a year.

For details on digital subscriptions, contact us at sales@cutter.com or call +1 (781) 648-8700.

• Gain global perspectives and solutions to today's most critical business-technology issues
• Ensure your IT organization's success in a volatile economic climate
• Benefit from the lessons learned by others and identify pitfalls to avoid
• Develop well-supported arguments on how to get your organization to improve its IT operations
• Work smarter while under tighter constraints
• Put your IT concerns in a business context

Renew your CITJ subscription today and receive your free report!

Renew now and you'll immediately receive a PDF copy of the report "What Is a Complex Project Manager -- Really?" by Robert Wysocki -- a US $150 value! Explore the traits of a complex project manager, what disciplines should be present in his or her skills profile, where these professionals come from, and how to develop a cadre of such professionals.

Even if you recently renewed, you can extend your subscription today and receive this valuable report. Plus, you'll avoid any impending price increases over the coming year. What's more, you'll receive upcoming issues on the complex topics surrounding software development, project management, and IT management in the new global environment.

Renew now to take advantage of this special offer. Extend your subscription today!

Subscriptions delivered outside of North America include a $100 shipping fee. CITJ is published 12 times a year.

CITJ is unique in that it is written by IT professionals, not journalists. You get frank, honest accounts of what's working and what isn't -- from practitioners who are under the same pressures you are to get the job done. Each issue is devoted to a current IT topic and includes a thought-provoking introduction by a leading expert, followed by 5 or 6 in-depth articles that feature debate, case studies, research findings, and experience-based opinion. No other journal brings together so many cutting-edge thinkers, and lets them speak so bluntly on critical issues.

Cutter IT Journal will help you:

• Gain global perspectives and solutions to today's most critical business-technology issues
• Ensure your IT organization's success in a volatile economic climate
• Benefit from the lessons learned by others and identify pitfalls to avoid
• Develop well-supported arguments on how to get your organization to improve its IT operations
• Work smarter while under tighter constraints
• Put your IT concerns in a business context

But don't just take our word for it:

A great publication! Top writers writing about problems that IT managers have to deal with in a practical way. It's uncanny just how frequently the next issue has as its theme a problem I'm facing at the time!

— John Whiteing, Principal Information Consultant, Comalco Aluminum Ltd., George Town, Australia

I received a renewal notice after reading the Cutter IT Journal issue on the changing role of the CIO. The information was a just-in-time inspiration for our IT strategy exercise. CITJ provides such useful information and is such a great resource, how could I not renew?

— Bonnie Cooper PMP, IT Program Director, Massachusetts Medical Society

As a subscriber, you also receive the weekly Cutter IT Advisor -- an email bulletin delivered straight to your inbox. Each issue offers expert advice on hot-button issues such as IT leadership, cloud computing, risk management, organizational change, devops, enterprise architecture, agile project management, and more -- in a concise, easy-to-read format.

Gain cutting-edge and thoughtful debate on the complex issues around software development, project management, and IT management in the new global environment. Don't miss CITJ's upcoming issues.

Become a Cutter IT Journal subscriber today!

Subscriptions delivered outside of North America include a $100 shipping fee. CITJ is published 12 times a year.

About Cutter IT Journal

Cutter IT Journal brings you frank, honest accounts of what it takes to improve IT performance. CITJ is unique in that it is written by IT professionals -- people like you who face the same challenges and are under the same pressures to get the job done.

Each monthly issue is devoted to a current IT topic -- not issues you were dealing with six months ago, or those that are so esoteric you might not ever need to learn from others' experiences. An expert Guest Editor delivers articles by established IT practitioners, including case studies, research findings, and experience-based opinion. No other journal brings together so many cutting-edge thinkers, and lets them speak so bluntly on critical issues.

As a subscriber, you will also receive between-issue Cutter IT Advisors -- email bulletins delivered straight to your inbox. Each edition offers expert advice on hot-button issues such as IT leadership, cloud computing, risk management, organizational change, adopting agile practices, and more -- in a concise, easy-to-read format.

Upcoming CITJ Issues

About Cutter Benchmark Review

When it comes to many of today's hot IT topics, the hype potential is significant. Cutter Benchmark Review helps you see beyond the hype.

In each quarterly report, editor Dr. Joseph Feller selects an IT topic of current concern and asks two of its foremost experts -- a distinguished academic and a practitioner in the field -- to frame the issue for you, explain how it relates to other trends, address the pressures and interests surrounding it, and provide a framework to help you make sense of the topic as it applies to your organization. These experts, often aided by the collection of fresh survey data, waste no time diving into solutions and offering real-world advice and recommendations you can immediately put into action at your company.

Upcoming CBR Issues

Subscriptions delivered outside of North America include a $100 shipping fee. Cutter IT Journal is published 12 times a year. Cutter Benchmark Review is published 4 times a year.

For details on digital subscriptions, contact us at sales@cutter.com or call +1 (781) 648-8700.

The report Delivering Business Value Through Collaboration and Teamwork provides the guidance, recommendations and best practices you need to improve team performance, encourage shared ownership of goals, and transform your team into one that delivers consistent, value-added business solutions. You’ll learn -- from the perspective of agile IT leaders -- how to best engage your team using a blend of agile and collaborative practices. And you’ll be provided with tools to help you ensure allegiance and top performance from the new model of ad hoc and virtual teams.

This report will help you:

• Foster a culture of synergy and loyalty among your team members
• Identify the top predictors of team success
• Hire technical people who will successfully integrate with your team
• Avoid the three workplace trends that can sabotage teamwork -- matrixing, multiplexing, and distributing
• Use specific metrics to quantify and predict team performance
• Build a sense of shared values and behaviors to meet common goals
• Transform cowboy coders into teammates
• Employ three proven practices to successfully lead virtual teams
• Understand teamwork differences in agile and plan-based companies
• Make changes at the systems level to support team performance
• Differentiate between high-performing and low-performing knowledge teams

This report also addresses the increased need for specialized technical skills to ensure successful product and system development. You’ll get tools and strategies to help you build more effective and collaborative teams when faced with low organizational loyalty, high turnover, skill specialization, geographically dispersed teams, and increased outsourcing. You’ll also benefit from a quick, step-by-step guide to building a team culture among ad hoc and virtual teams.

Published: November 2005, 162 pages, PDF format

Authors: Steven B. Ambrose, Christopher M. Avery, Steven W. Baker, Michael Begeman, Laurent Bossavit, Martina Ceschi, Tracy C. Gibbons, Jessica Lipnack, Mary Lynn Manns, Robert J. Marshall, Kay Pentecost, Kert Peterson, Linda Rising, Johanna Rothman, Alberto Sillitti, Jeffrey Stamps, Giancarlo Succi, Jean Tabaka, and Rob Thomsett

When data is properly maintained, cleansed, and stored in an efficient and consistent manner, it can provide key information that will assist in short-term tactical and long-term strategic decisions -- without fear that the underlying information is erroneous.

The report Developing a Master Data Management Strategy helps your organization implement a master data management (MDM) solution that delivers a consistent set of information across all operational and reporting systems in your enterprise. You’ll learn how to make a business case for MDM, what to look for in an MDM solution, and how to better define your MDM requirements.

This report will help you:

• Create an MDM master repository that is clean, labeled, and protected from accidental overwriting
• Reduce duplicate data entry, force commonality of codes, and impose better control of business processes
• Select an MDM tool that imposes the least intrusion on your organizational infrastructure
• Conduct a proof of concept to better determine MDM vendor offerings
• Ensure your MDM solution supports the different data formats required to transport data across your enterprise
• Meet the needs of BI toolkits that require refined data for the complex models in their applications

You’ll learn what enterprise data types are a good fit for an MDM solution,
the profound impact that search technology is having on the MDM world, and what mistakes to avoid when choosing an MDM vendor, such as conducting a proof of concept with a scope that is too large and complex.

You’ll explore the four MDM application layers -- end user application layer, system integration layer, business integration layer, data management layer -- and the specific tasks for each of the five project phases in each layer. And you’ll discuss a number of MDM technology enablers, such as the cost per byte of data storage, the speed of data retrieval, and grid computing.

This report also reviews three case studies detailing how these enterprises use an MDM solution to solve their critical business problems, and offers four recommendations to consider when building a business case for an enterprise MDM solution.

Published: June 2007, 90 pages, PDF format

Authors: Steve Andriole, Greg Mancuso, Al Moreno, Ken Orr

Table of Contents:

• Opening Statement by Patrick Debois
• Why Enterprises Must Adopt Devops to Enable Continuous Delivery by Jez Humble and Joanne Molesky
• Devops at Advance Internet: How We Got in the Door by Eric Shamow
• The Business Case for Devops: A Five-Year Retrospective by Lawrence Fitzpatrick and Michael Dillon
• Next-Generation Process Integration: CMMI and ITIL Do Devops by Bill Phifer
• Devops: So You Say You Want a Revolution? by Dominica DeGrandis

Published: August 2011, 40 pages, PDF format

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

Published: November 2010, 40 pages, PDF format

Authors: Mitchell Ummel, Macedonio Alani, Steven Baker, David Wyld, Doug Hadden, Pablo Lera, Mabel Ciancio, and Jorge Ronchese

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

Table of Contents:

• Opening Statement
• Devops and the People Who Practice It: Winning Their Hearts and Minds
• Where is IT Operations Within Devops?
• Disciplined Agile Delivery and Collaborative Devops
• Metrics-Driven Devops
• Reducing Software Release Pain by Releasing More Often

Published: December 2011, 36 pages, PDF format

Authors: Patrick Debois, Ernest Mueller, Bill Keyworth, Scott Ambler, Alex LeQuoc, Kief Morris

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

Companies dramatically improve service and agility when they focus on the role people, process, organization and culture play in tandem with the technology itself. In fact, according to Cutter Fellow Steve Andriole, "technology and the processes we use to optimize IT are fairly meaningless unless you're surrounded by the right people allowed to do the right things."

In the Executive Brief Finding IT's Strategic Opportunities: What's Next, Dr. Andriole examines the current state of business-technology and brings his expertise (delivered in his inimitable no-holds-barred style) to the concrete steps organizations must take to thrive in the next decade.

In this fast-moving and practical brief, you'll learn:

• The five new risk quotients that you need to manage more aggressively than the ones you're already addressing.
• The best practices truly innovative companies employ, and the questions you need to ask yourself to join their ranks.
• Why business relationship management is a critical skill set for the 21st century, and what it takes to get it right.
• How governance has changed, and what the new requirements mean to you.
• The ten trends that will define IT in 2015, and how they shape technology acquisition, deployment and support processes.

This Brief is designed for those of you who have been in the trenches for a long time, as well as for those who want to jump right into the "advanced course in gonzo technology management".

Find out about the new opportunities you can leverage (as well as the pitfalls to avoid) in setting your IT strategy for the next decade.

Order your copy of Finding IT's Strategic Opportunities: What's Next? delivered in PDF format today!

Published: February 2011, 17 pages, PDF format

Author: Steve Andriole

The Cutter Consortium report How to Align the Project Portfolio to the Strategic Plan defines a simple, integrated process for selecting the initial portfolio and maintaining its alignment to the strategic plan using an agile approach.

In this report, you'll discuss the barriers to maintaining portfolio alignment to the strategic plan, you'll gain a four-level architecture for a strategic plan, and you'll discover how to adjust your project management lifecycle (PMLC) models so that they align to a quarterly portfolio review cycle.

Build project portfolios that align with your organization's strategic plan and a process to maintain that alignment. Order your copy of this report today!

Table of Contents:

• Barriers to Maintaining Portfolio Alignment to the Strategic Plan
• A Robust Architecture for a Strategic Plan
• Agile Project Portfolio Process
• Selecting Projects for the APP
• Performance Review Process
• Putting It All Together

Published: October 2011, 13 pages, PDF format

Author: Robert K. Wysocki

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

In a world some people call "hypercompetitive" -- with little time to rest on one's laurels -- it is increasingly difficult to achieve sustainable competitive advantage without world-class, integrated business processes. But getting from today's inefficient and fragmented processes to tomorrow's integrated and well-defined business processes involves a fair amount of chaos and pain.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Business Process Modeling Fundamentals by Ken Orr. Discover the key concepts and strategies involved in business process innovation; explore the major threads of business process thinking and the diagrams/tools used in modeling; and get tips for avoiding business process (re)modeling failure.

Chapter 2: Integrating BPM and SOA: The Emerging Role of OMG and MDA by Michael K. Guttman and John H. Parodi. Leverage the Object Management Group's Model Driven Architecture (MDA) to help unify BPM and SOA. Understand how the BPM, SOA, and MDA paradigms are likely to converge in the near future and where and when to step into that process.

Chapter 3: The Key to SOA Governance: Understanding the Essence of Business by Keith Swenson. Learn how to combine BPM and Enterprise Service Bus to create processes that can easily be deployed by IT while leveraging your existing systems and infrastructure without significant rework.

Chapter 4: Business Process Management: A Broken Promise or the Building Blocks of Modern Enterprise Architecture? Introduction by Bartosz Kiepuszewski

Sections:

• Enterprise Architecture: Business Process Management, SOA and MDSD by Michael Hartges, Dirk Krafzig, Michael Kunz, Florian Mösch, Dirk Slama, and Thomas Stahl. Discover how business process management supports T-Mobile in its efforts to innovate by rethinking and simplifying processes.
• Adaptive Process Management Architecture: Enabling Enterprise Innovation by Borys Stokalski and Marcin Strozanski. Explore the four key capabilities that constitute the adaptive process automation frameworks and how to partner SOA with business rules to enable enterprise innovation.
• Is Business Process Management Ready for Prime Time? Lessons from a Proof of Concept by Olivier Brousseau. Hear how Schlumberger, a multimillion-dollar oilfield services company, put six vendors of business process management suites through their paces -- and found them all wanting.
• Business Process Management: Defining the Basics for Success by Mark Fung-A-Fat. Learn how the Massachusetts Medical Society successfully implemented a business process management strategy to manage processes as diverse as its online e-commerce business flows to its time-off request process.
• All That Glitters Is Not Gold: Selecting the Right Tool for Your Business Process Management Needs by Nick Russell, Wil M.P. van der Aalst, and Arthur H.M. ter Hofstede. Discover how to use workflow patterns to benchmark the capabilities of business process management technology offerings to select the tool that's best for your organization.

Chapter 5: Business Modeling and Analytics by Brian J. Dooley. Sidestep the confusion created by modeling convergence, as process models are merged with models created to chart data for software development and again with analytic models used to predict outcomes of processes under a given set of conditions.

This report will also provide you with six evaluation criteria to assess the strengths and weaknesses of business process management suite vendors, and help you avoid falling into the trap of thinking there is only one right business process solution.

Finally, you'll explore common business process management misconceptions, and get steps that will lead you toward success, including better understanding your business imperatives before choosing a business process management solution, identifying mandatory and desired capabilities, establishing satisfaction criteria, benchmarking potential solutions, and choosing the right tool for your organization.

Authors: Olivier Brousseau, Brian J. Dooley, Mark Fung-A-Fat, Michael K. Guttman, Michael Hartges, Arthur H.M. ter Hofstede, Bartosz Kiepuszewski, Dirk Krafzig, Michael Kunz, Florian Mösch, Ken Orr, John H. Parodi, Nick Russell, Dirk Slama, Thomas Stahl, Borys Stokalski, Marcin Strózanski, Keith Swenson, and Wil M.P. van der Aalst

Published: December 2007, 170 pages, PDF format

Because we have been able to keep our team of experts intact and to maintain the core set of survey questions we ask of the respondents, we have learned quite a bit about the manner in which modern organizations react (and should react) to these kinds of events. We have learned, for example that the knee-jerk reaction typical of past crises whereby the firm would slash IT budgets seeking to "trim the fat" and "reduce overhead" wasn't exactly the case. In last year's survey, we found that "while organizations are indeed cutting projects and limiting their exposure by reducing investments in IT, they are also limiting reductions in the IT shop as much as possible knowing that IT assets and knowledge lost during a downturn cannot be readily rebuilt and scaled once the economy turns. As a consequence, the shape that this downturn has been taking for IT and IT professionals is likely different than the historical pattern of deep cost-cutting measures."

Published: July 2010, 36 pages, PDF format

Authors: Gabriele Piccoli, Dennis A. Adams, Robert J. Benson

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The IT industry as a whole, and its professionals can improve the lives of billions of people at the bottom of the pyramid and thereby gain significant benefits. The articles presented here help create an awareness of what has been done and what can be, and should be, done. Guest Editor San Murugesan invites you to share your thoughts on and experiences in putting IT to real work in emerging markets for the benefit of one and all.

Published: July 2010, 36 pages, PDF format

Authors: San Murugesan, David Croslin, Radhika Jain, Chaka Chaka, Sherif Kamel, Hao Zhao, Sead Muftic, and Feng Zhang

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Published: December 2010, 48 pages, PDF format

Authors: Don Estes, Richard Bender, Corby James, Lawrence Fitzpatrick, Tom Love, John Wooten, Matthew Simons, Jonny LeRoy, Tom Bragg, Michel Vanden Bossche and Ian MacLarty

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This Executive Report by Moshe Cohen provides the frameworks, tools, and skills you need for effective stakeholder management. This report will help you navigate the multiple and sometimes conflicting interests on projects, understand the balance of forces within your organization, and garner the support you need to ensure project success.

Table of Contents:

Published: July 2011, 13 pages, PDF format

Author: Moshe Cohen

Online resource center clients: Access this report online.

While all the articles take a positive view of the opportunities opened up by mobile technologies, the stories they narrate also show that challenges persist, and that organizations are slowly dealing with them by expanding their strategies, scoping their markets, implementing better security, or piloting enhancements and new business models supported by novel architectures. As you read the articles, we are confident that you will recognize this tension. We hope that they will be a starting point for further reflection on how to join an evolution that will require agility, flexibility, and working at increasing data transfer rates, from anyplace and at anytime.

Published: September 2010, 40 pages, PDF format

Authors: Katia Passerini, Charlie Bess, Jesse Greco, Niel Nickolaise, David Lineman, Phillip Whisenhunt, Ronald Vetter, Edmund Schuster, Hyoung-Gon Lee , and Chaka Chaka

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The Cutter Consortium report Modern IT Leadership: Surviving Chaos and Delivering Value provides effective leadership strategies for all those in charge of the IT function and identifies the unique skills and knowledge that will be required of the future CIO. You'll receive numerous case examples of IT leadership initiatives that succeeded and failed -- and why this happened -- and you'll gain specific advice for managing IT in times of economic uncertainty, rapidly advancing technology, and self-organizing teams.

Table of Contents

Part I: The Great Recession Fallout: Will CIOs Be Elevated or Exterminated?

Introduction: The Role of IT in Shaping and Reshaping Corporate Culture by Vince Kellen.

Chapter 1: Who's IT Gonna Be? CIOs Past, Present, and (Poof!) Future by Steve Andriole. Discover why CIOs may become inevitable "roadkill" somewhere after the year 2015.

Chapter 2: The Future CIO and the Evolving Leadership Landscape by Thornton May. Consider what types of CIOs will have difficulty over the next few years, which will go extinct, and which will thrive.

Chapter 3: The Right Way to Recruit CIOs by Bob Gariano. Compare the attributes companies rank highly when hiring CIOs, and whether the right level of attention is given to each.

Chapter 4: Back to the Future -- The Future Role of the CIO by Robert N. Charette. Explore why the CIO role should not be linked to a misguided conception of automation.

Chapter 5: Yielding to Darwin -- The Evolution of the CIO by Patrick E. Moroney. Uncover some of the characteristics today's CIOs must have to succeed in their evolving role.

Chapter 6: The Futureproof CIO by Eric D. Brown and Gene De Libero. Identify some of the tools that future CIOs will use to create competitive advantage for their organizations, such as commodity platforms, open systems, and cloud computing.

Chapter 7: Taking Action During an Economic Decline -- Strategies for the IT Team with Gabriele Piccoli, Dorothy Leidner, and Thomas H. Murphy. Evaluate the optimal strategies for setting the course for IT in a financial and economic storm.

Chapter 8: The 2010s -- Is Your Staff Ready? with Rob Austin, Ron Blitstein, Christine Davis, Lynne Ellyn, Tim Lister, Ken Orr, Robert Scott, and Borys Stokalski. Gain advice and opinion aimed to help IT management prepare for the future, with a focus on people strategy.

Chapter 9: Leadership During Tough Times by Moshe Cohen. Draw lessons from historical examples, share wisdom from successful leaders, and receive guidance on how to get your firm on track for a prosperous future.

Part II: Cultivating Leadership Throughout the IT Organization

Introduction: Leading Inside an IT Organization -- Putting People First by Bob Furniss.

Chapter 10: If It Weren't for People, Being a Leader Would Be Great! by Pam Hager. Explore a three-part process to help leaders connect with people and create an effective plan and process for change.

Chapter 11: How Culture Affects Leadership by Martin Bauer. Consider how company culture affects leadership and gain strategies for overcoming the challenges that culture presents.

Chapter 12: How to Cultivate Leadership in Yourself and Others by Martha J. Lindeman. Gain a psychological view of effective leadership, including four leader types and the response of followers to each type.

Chapter 13: Agile Managers -- The Essence of Leadership by Johanna Rothman. Discover what it takes to be an agile leader and learn how to make the hard decisions.

Chapter 14: In Search of Complexity -- Why Self-Organization Requires Leadership and Governance by Jurgen Appelo. Take a "systems" view of leadership and learn how to manage complexity through self-organization.

Chapter 15: IT Project Leadership -- Feeling Your Way by Mark Woodman and Jason Bates. Learn how to "feel" leadership as it goes on in projects and how to use stories to become an effective leader.

Authors: Steve Andriole, Jurgen Appelo, Rob Austin, Jason Bates, Martin Bauer, Ron Blitstein, Eric D. Brown, Robert N. Charette, Moshe Cohen, Christine Davis, Gene De Libero, Lynne Ellyn, Bob Furniss, Bob Gariano, Pam Hager, Vince Kellen, Dorothy E. Leidner, Martha J. Lindeman, Tim Lister, Thornton May, Patrick E. Moroney, Thomas H. Murphy, Ken Orr, Gabriele Piccoli, Johanna Rothman, Robert Scott, Boris Stokalski, and Mark Woodman

Published: June 2010, 233 pages, PDF

This report is also available in a print edition.

This in-depth report provides expert, practical advice on how to successfully modernize your legacy applications. You'll expand your knowledge of legacy solutions to include new approaches such as rearchitecting, rewrite methodologies and internal and external rationalization. And you'll benefit from the best practices and lessons learned on real-world modernization projects, helping you develop a "best-fit" modernization strategy for your company.

This report will help you:

• Expand the legacy application modernization discussion beyond choosing between packaged solutions and redesign/rewrite projects
• Grasp new concepts -- semiautomated rearchitecting, agile rewrite with DSL, BRE for packages, and the four types of internal rationalization
• Better understand the underlying problem of project complexity
• Determine the right size team for your project
• Learn why internal rationalization is where some of the most interesting and innovative work is being done
• Avoid the temptation to apply tactical integration approaches with minimal regard for the end-to-end architecture

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Alternative Approaches to Modernizing Legacy Applications by Don Estes.

Chapter 1: Correct and Comprehensive -- Testing Software Rewrites and Redesign/Rewrites by Richard Bender. Explore real-world examples of how to successfully conduct testing in a modernization project.

Chapter 2: Portfolio Management for Legacy Systems by Corby James. Gain a methodology for identifying and prioritizing applications from your portfolio to be modernized -- and determine which applications should be left alone.

Chapter 3: Breaking the Cycle of Failure -- Best Practices to Drive Successful Legacy System Replacement by Lawrence Fitzpatrick. Walk through the ten best practices to drive success in replacing critical legacy systems.

Chapter 4: Agile Legacy Reengineering -- A Repeatable Technique for Managing Modernization Risks by Tom Love and John Wooten. Discover an agile approach to rewriting legacy applications that sharply reduces application complexity and enhances flexibility.

Chapter 5: Contending with Creaky Platforms by Matthew Simons and Jonny LeRoy. Review a number of metrics visualization methods that will help you determine where your problems are, prompt management to take action, and drive your remediation efforts.

Chapter 6: Rewriting and Rearchitecting as Alternatives to Code Translation by Tom Bragg. Compare and contrast the benefits of rearchitecting against code translation or manual rewrites.

Chapter 7: Ontology-Driven Legacy Modernization by Michel Vanden Bossche and Ian MacLarty. Discover a completely different way of conceptualizing applications via the Semantic Web.

Chapter 8: Validating Legacy Code -- Modernizing Strategies Through Technical Debt Assessments by John Heintz. Dive into a case study on the DeLorean project, a project explicitly chartered with cleaning up the architecture of a production system, removing duplication, improving code quality, building in testing, and improving reliability -- in short, to remove technical debt.

Chapter 9: Successful Application Modernization and Rationalization, Part I -- Short-Term Tactical Approaches by Don Estes. Gain a blueprint for successful legacy modernization via an intense program of test-driven modernization.

Chapter 10: Successful Application Modernization and Rationalization, Part II -- Long-Term Strategic Approaches by Don Estes. Examine both the conventional and promising unconventional approaches to legacy application modernization, along with their pros and cons.

Chapter 11: Performing "Heart Surgery During Marathons" -- Core Banking System Modernization by Scott Simmons. Gain recommendations for maintaining and managing current core banking solutions while working to transform the core system functionality.

Chapter 12: Guaranteed Success in Legacy Modernization -- Baby Steps by Don Estes. Examine a project design for a major US federal agency that is undertaking its second attempt to modernize an application.

Published: May 2011, 218 pages, PDF format

Authors: Richard Bender, Tom Bragg, Don Estes, Lawrence Fitzpatrick, John Heintz, Corby James, Jonny LeRoy, Ian MacLarty, Tom Love, Scott Simmons, Matthew Simons, Michel Vanden Bossche, and John Wooten

Published: January 2011, 12 pages, PDF format

Author: Moshe Cohen

Online resource center clients: Access this report online.

This Council Opinion, prepared by the Cutter Business Technology Council includes the commentary of each Council Fellow and the logic behind his or her concurring or dissenting opinion, as well as the strategic implications of the trend.

Published: January 2011, 11 pages, PDF format

Author: Robert Scott, with concurrences and dissents by Lynne Ellyn, Tim Lister, Ron Blitstein, Ken Orr, Israel Gat

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

They argue that you learn professional programming not only from a textbook, but also by collaborating with skilled peers. Of course, there are rules for good code, but building good code requires more than theoretical knowledge of these rules -- it requires tacit knowledge and experience. And this is where craft enters the scene: craftsmanship is the traditional means of teaching and transferring tacit knowledge and experience. So is this a battle cry against software engineering? Some people think so. This issue of Cutter IT Journal aims at providing you with an overview of the different aspects of the current discussion of software craftsmanship.

Published: April 2010, 36 pages, PDF format

Authors: Jens Coldewey, Matthew Stuempfle, J. David Gibson, Ken Orr, Paul Bassett, Gil Broza, Lawrence Fitzpatrick, Stefan Roock and Michael Hughes

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

The report Software Projects: When to Jump Ship, When to Stay the Course helps you identify projects that are likely to overrun cost, scope or schedule, and those that are beyond recovery. You'll get specific advice on how to de-escalate failing projects, and how to cancel failing projects proficiently and with minimal consequences for you and your organization. You'll also get guidelines to minimize or even eliminate the root causes of project failure.

This report will help you:

• Identify projects signaling eventual and expensive failure
• Implement project management controls to start a project off right
• Determine who in your organization should be responsible and accountable for canceling the project
• Take corrective action to mitigate a failing project
• Use a one-minute test to determine your software project escalation risk
• Increase the likelihood of success with public-sector IT projects
• Learn the failure points for most IT projects

You'll also get insight into why smaller software projects experience more success than larger ones, especially when agile practices are employed. You'll also learn to use engineering and management practices that will lead to success, and avoid those with the potential for failure.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Killing IT Projects
by Lynne Nix

Chapter 1
Software Project Escalation and De-escalation: What Do We Know?
by Mark Keil

• Project Management Factors That Promote Escalation
• Behavioral Factors That Promote Escalation
• A One-Minute Test for Factors That Can Promote Escalation
• Understanding the Dynamics of Escalation and De-Escalation
• Summary

Chapter 2
Why Flawed Software Projects Are Not Cancelled in Time
by Capers Jones

• How Software Projects Go Bad
• Poor Estimation and Schedule Planning
• Inaccurate and Optimistic Status Reporting
• External Schedule Pressures
• Summary and Conclusions

Chapter 3
Project Management, The Movie
by Laurent Bossavit

• Tragedy in Three Acts
• You've Read the Book; Now See the Movie!
• Ignored Omens
• Missed Opportunities for Termination
• The Agony
• It's Not Luck
• Lessons Learned

Chapter 4
Cancelling a Project in Four Not-So-Easy Steps
by Eileen Strider

• Awareness: Breaking the Project Trance
• Accountability: Will Someone Please Step Up?
• Articulation: Delivering the Bad News
• Action: You Can't Walk Away Yet
• Not Easy, But the Right Thing to Do

Chapter 5
A Losing Gamble with Public Funds: Why Large Public-Sector IT Projects Are More Likely to Fail and Are Harder to Cancel
by Payson Hall

• Approach To Risk: "To Err Is Human, to Forgive Is Not the Policy of this Administration"
• Initial Business Case: "Ready, Set, Ready, Ready, Set, Ready, Ready ..."
• The Megaproject: "If Some Is Good, and More Is Better, Then Too Much Must Be Just Right."
• Sponsorship/Stakeholder Complexity: "Everyone with a Nickel Invested Wants a Dollar's Worth of Say-So."
• Procurement: "Lie to Me."
• Vendor Management: "Don't Make Me Pull This Car Over ..."
• Managing Change: "Success Is Unlikely When the Rate of Change Exceeds the Rate of Progress."
• Project Status: "If We Punish the Bearers of Bad News, Bad Things Will Stop Happening."
• Improving Project Outcomes in the Public Sector

Chapter 6
Organizational Factors of Software Project Failure
by Dennis Linscomb

• Case 1
• Case 2
• Case 3

Chapter 7
Finding Success in Small Software Projects
by Khaled El Emam

• Introduction
• Are Small Projects Successful?
• Agile Practices for Small Projects
• Small Project Practices
• Conclusions

Order your copy of Software Projects: When to Jump Ship, When to Stay the Course today!

Published: March 2004, 108 pages, PDF format

Authors: Lynne Nix, Mark Keil, Capers Jones, Laurent Bossavit, Eileen Strider, Payson Hall, Dennis Linscomb, and Khaled El Emam

In the specific case of the IS strategy, not only is it already difficult to get clarity about the objectives (the elusive alignment quest), but the interdependence of people (and their varying attitudes and competencies), technologies (with the dizzying pace of their evolution), and existing organizational structures must all be thought about as part of the planning process. That's a lot to consider -- and constantly reconsider as conditions change. Strategic IT planning is hardly an emerging item on the executive's agenda. However, given its important and recurrent appearance on the CIO's top agenda items, it is the kind topic that we at Cutter Benchmark Review believe is important to revisit from time to time. More specifically, in this issue of CBR, we set out to examine the ways in which strategic IT planning influences the value that IT delivers to the organization, as well as the degree to which the planning process is perceived to affect organizational outcomes and results. With this focus, we can both benchmark the planning process itself and, at the same time, tackle the question of its relationship to IT value. Given the current and ongoing economic struggles facing businesses both large and small around the world, this seemed like an excellent time to discuss the value of strategic IT planning.

Published: April 2011, 31 pages, PDF format

Authors: Gabriele Piccoli, Editor; Dorothy Leidner, Bob Benson

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

This report is also available in print format.

The report Strategies and Guidelines for Assessing and Improving IT leadership Skills provides you with expert insight into the characteristics, skills and behaviors that contribute to effective (and ineffectual) IT leadership, viable approaches to selecting and training IT leaders, and recommendations for motivating and empowering your project teams.

Some highlights from this report:

• Learn how to use a methodical approach to select and train IT leaders -- called leadership husbandry -- as well as a leadership model -- to help you motivate and influence your team members to achieve your business objectives.

• Gain insight from 11 UK-based CEOs on what traits were necessary for them to progress through the ranks of IT and beyond to the position of CEO.

• Explore a unique approach to leadership at DTE Energy -- adopting agile best practices as a style of organizational governance -- resulting in a culture of teamwork excellence as well as phenomenal business success.

• Examine the three key ways IT leaders can transform their mindset to develop a true partnership with the business and become an integral part of the leadership team.

• Get real-world confessions from a study of 250 IT executives in corporations worldwide revealing the reasons behind leadership failure, the attributes of effective leaders, why leadership matters, and the differences between leaders across industries and geography.

Improve your IT leadership skills with the timeless insight and recommendations found in this exciting resource. Order your copy today!

Published (Second Edition): January 2012, 85 pages, PDF format

Authors: Christopher Avery, Steven Baker, David Caruso, Robina Chatham, Kerry Gentry, and Richard Hordern

This report is also available as a PDF.

The report Strategies and Guidelines for Assessing and Improving IT leadership Skills provides you with expert insight into the characteristics, skills and behaviors that contribute to effective (and ineffectual) IT leadership, viable approaches to selecting and training IT leaders, and recommendations for motivating and empowering your project teams.

Some highlights from this report:

• Learn how to use a methodical approach to select and train IT leaders -- called leadership husbandry -- as well as a leadership model -- to help you motivate and influence your team members to achieve your business objectives.

• Gain insight from 11 UK-based CEOs on what traits were necessary for them to progress through the ranks of IT and beyond to the position of CEO.

• Explore a unique approach to leadership at DTE Energy -- adopting agile best practices as a style of organizational governance -- resulting in a culture of teamwork excellence as well as phenomenal business success.

• Examine the three key ways IT leaders can transform their mindset to develop a true partnership with the business and become an integral part of the leadership team.

• Get real-world confessions from a study of 250 IT executives in corporations worldwide revealing the reasons behind leadership failure, the attributes of effective leaders, why leadership matters, and the differences between leaders across industries and geography.

Improve your IT leadership skills with the timeless insight and recommendations found in this exciting resource. Order your copy today!

Published (Second Edition): January 2012, 85 pages, delivered in print, by post

Authors: Christopher Avery, Steven Baker, David Caruso, Robina Chatham, Kerry Gentry, and Richard Hordern

The first stage of a project must reproduce the business functionality of the legacy application and pass rigorous acceptance testing validated against the legacy system. Then a second stage can provide enhanced functionality by refactoring the results of the first stage. A variety of conventional and unconventional approaches are discussed in depth with their respective pros and cons.

Published: January 2011, 25 pages, PDF format

Author: Don Estes

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

This special issue of Cutter Benchmark Review offers benchmarking data on the state of the adoption and use of tablets in the enterprise, in an attempt to understand whether they have become pervasive and how organizations are approaching their integration in the firm's overall infrastructure.

You'll receive insightful and provocative analysis on the applications of tablets in the enterprise, their use (or nonuse) as workstation replacements, and the possible barriers to adoption, such as concerns over data security.

Table of Contents

• The Tablet: A Solution in Search of a Problem by Joseph Feller
• A Storm Is Coming In by Niel Nickolaisen
• Tablet Excitement Is Here, Uses Still Emerging by Gabriele Piccoli
• Tablets in the Enterprise Survey Data collected by Cutter Consortium

Published: August 2011, 22 pages, PDF format

Authors: Gabriele Piccoli, Joseph Feller, and Niel Nickolaisen

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

The seven articles in this issue of Cutter IT Journal explain how not to neglect technical debt, what to do in case neglect has already taken place, and how technical debt techniques could be applied in domains where they have not been used before.

Published: October 2010, 44 pages, PDF format

Authors: Israel Gat, John Heintz, Stephen Chin, Erik Huddleston, Walter Bodwell, Dave Rooney, Brent Barton, Chris Sterling, Ken Pugh, Jonathon Golden, and Andrew Shafer

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

Table of Contents:

• Opening Statement
• You've Come a Long Way, Baby -- But Hold the Applause
• Contextability: The New Usability
• Enriched Customer Engagement at the Table
• Achieving Customer Centricity: Technologies and Practices
• The Politics of Customer Experience

Published: February 2011, 33 pages, PDF format

Authors: Jim Love, Paul Clemont, Michael Hughes, Neil Roodyn, Suresh Malladi, Martin Bauer

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

At one end of the pool, we hear all the paranoid negatives. IT is not strategic, so CIOs will be reduced to technology caretakers and vendor managers, as they should be. CIOs are strategically dim-witted and not as sharp as the business in matters of IT and business value, so good riddance to the role. IT is now a consumer product that business leaders will buy themselves, bypassing a central IT purchasing and EA regime that seemed to exist only to stymie the strategy artisans in the business units. Web and Enterprise 2.0 have freed the business from the clutches of central IT and enabled so many benefits that we can stop thinking about corporate IT in the old way.

Published: January 2010, 32 pages, PDF format

Authors: Vince Kellen, Stephen J. Andriole, Thornton May, Bob Gariano, Robert N. Charette, Pat Moroney, Eric Brown and Gene De Libero

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

The Business Technology Trends Council Opinion The Neuroscience of Leadership asserts that with an advanced understanding of neuroscience, smart companies will develop software that capitalizes on the real nature of the brain, leading to greater usability, customer satisfaction, and improved human performance.

This Council Opinion will help you:

• Discover how the use of neuroscience will change the usability game, and smart companies will outcompete the clueless competition.
• Learn why leadership should not be turned over to left-brained people.
• Understand that there are three components of attention: alerting, orienting, and executive.
• Consider how the use of neuroscience applied to user response to computer interfaces impacts design.
• Understand that software development is being driven by gaming and virtual technologies -- technologies that clearly reflect a different way to think, problem solve, create, and learn.

Published: July 2011, 13 pages, PDF format

Authors: Ron Blitstein, Lynne Ellyn, Israel Gat, Lou Mazzucchelli, Ken Orr, and Robert D. Scott

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

This report from Cutter Consortium explores the latest innovations in environmentally sustainable IT and provides expert recommendations that will help your company define its green IT strategy and create realistic guidelines for its implementation.

You'll receive 155 pages chock-full of tips and advice on how your company can decrease its energy consumption and increase its organizational efficiency.

Some actions your organization can take now to decrease its environmental footprint include:

You'll learn of policy modifications you can make immediately to reduce the environmental impact of IT's use in the company, as well as cultural changes that take longer to enact. And you'll learn how you can make the best use of your existing resources and plan for growth accordingly.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Can IT Go Green? by San Murugesan.

Chapter 1: Building Sustainable IT by Emily Jane Ryan. Gain strategies for mobilizing a sustainable IT movement within your organization.

Chapter 2: Understanding the Linkages Between IT, Global Supply Chains, and the Environment by Joseph Sarkis and Jacob Park. Discover the profound -- and often hidden -- environmental impacts of the different stages of a typical IT supply chain.

Chapter 3: The Greening of the IT Sector: Problems and Solutions in Managing Environmental Compliance by Tom Butler and Damien McGovern. Examine the design and features of an ideal environmental compliance management system.

Chapter 4: The Perceived Dichotomy Between Current Green IT Initiatives and Information Security by David Biros, David Sikolia, and Michael Hass. Learn how to meet the seemingly conflicting demands of both energy efficiency and security.

Chapter 5: Lessons in Implementing "Green" Business Strategies with ICT by Bhuvan Unhelkar and Annukka Dickens. Receive advice on how to leverage information and communications technology to minimize the effect of enterprise business activities on the environment.

Chapter 6: Being Green -- A Duty and an Opportunity by Marie-Claude Boudreau, Adela Chen, Gabriele Piccoli, Emily Ryan, and Richard T. Watson. Benchmark current practices in green IT and receive guidelines on what you can do tomorrow in your organization.

Chapter 7: CIO Eyes Only -- One More Case for Green IT by Deborah Grove. Discover a three-week approach for establishing a strategy for solving data center energy emergencies.

Chapter 8: The Green Data Center -- Taking the First Steps Toward Green IT? by Ian Osborne. Explore the developments in grid computing underway in the UK and European Commission.

Chapter 9: Green Requirements for IT and Telecom by Brian J. Dooley. Gain strategies for treating green issues as part of your overall risk management program.

Order your copy of The Organizational Benefits of Green IT today!

Published: September 2008, 155 pages, delivered electronically as a PDF.

Authors: David Biros, Marie-Claude Boudreau, Tom Butler, Adela J.W. Chen, Annukka Dickens, Brian J. Dooley, Deborah Grove, Michael Hass, Damien McGovern, San Murugesan, Ian Osborne, Jacob Park, Gabriele Piccoli, Emily Jane Ryan, Joseph Sarkis, David Sikolia, Bhuvan Unhelkar, and Richard T. Watson

Table of Contents:

• Opening Statement
• Reacting to a Crisis: The Role of Planning and Technology in Crisis Communication
• The Multifaceted Role of IT in Crisis Response: Lessons from the Asian Tsunami Disaster
• Managing Information Flow Challenges in the Supply Chain
• Emergency Management Task Complexity and Knowledge-Sharing Strategies
• Toward a Framework for Crisis Decision Support Systems: Information Requirements for Contextual Team Situation Awareness

Published: January 2011, 33 pages, PDF format

Authors: Dorothy E. Leidner, Catherine Szpindor, Gary Pan, Jamison Day, Leiser Silva, Weidong Xia, Irma Becerra-Fernandez, Jose Rocha, Yasir Javed, Tony Norris, David Johnston, and Emma Hudson-Doyle

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

Government is the largest institution on the face of the Earth. Citizens worldwide now expect more from their governments than ever before. Perennially, we struggle in the pursuit of government efficiency and cost-effectiveness. We find new levels of government accountability, with renewed mandates for government transparency. Unlike the business world, within government, we find programs and services exist in a universe where there are no natural laws of selection. As we examine the "state of the states" in this Executive Report by Mitchell Ummel, we find that the answers exist within a rising movement, one that the author refers to as "Transformative E-Government 3.0."

Published: February 2011, 20 pages, PDF format

Author: Mitchell Ummel

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

The Cutter Consortium report The Truth About Cloud Computing: Adoption Strategies, Security, and Reliability delivers a comprehensive assessment of cloud computing's actual strengths, weaknesses, benefits, and risks. You receive 258 pages packed with balanced insight and opinion, presented by a diverse group of industry experts, real-world practitioners and cutting-edge service providers. You gather the expertise you need to determine where (or if) cloud computing fits in your firm's overall business-technology strategy and how to begin the adoption process.

This report will help you:

• Gain a greater understanding of the cloud computing environment so that you may make more rapid decisions
• Think strategically, not tactically, about how your organization wants to leverage technology
• Launch a traditional due diligence process to determine your cloud computing adoption strategy
• Leverage cloud computing to reduce hardware and application software maintenance and update issues
• Identify opportunities to mix and match services
• Discover why -- contrary to popular belief -- cloud computing's security benefits outweigh its security risks
• Dispel the eight common myths regarding software-as-a-service
• Avoid purchasing servers, software, data center space, or network equipment, instead buying these resources as a lower-cost, fully outsourced service
• Scale on-demand to meet peak and uncertain computing demands

Table of Contents

Introduction: Cloud Computing -- IT's Day in the Sun? by San Murugesan.

Chapter 1: Seeing Through the Fog -- The Language, Claims, Myths, and Realities of Cloud Computing by Jeffrey J. Hardy. Understand what cloud computing is and what it is not. Cast a skeptical eye on some of the claims made for cloud computing.

Chapter 2: Clearing Up the Cloud -- Adoption Strategies for Cloud Computing by Ed Reynolds and Charles E. Bess. Outline a cloud solution and discover four broad strategies your organization can use to embrace cloud computing.

Chapter 3: Making the Cloud Case -- Building the Right IT Infrastructure Services by Beth Cohen. Create a successful infrastructure that integrates all the required services seamlessly to the end user.

Chapter 4: Cloud as a Service Delivery Platform -- The Must-Haves for Getting to Value by Jason Liu. Explore how a leading telecommunications service provider is using a cloud enablement platform to bring a variety of new services to the market.

Chapter 5: Entering the Cloud -- Phased Adoption to Computing Nirvana by Steve Andriole. Rethink core competency, sourcing strategies, technology funding, and the role that technology should play in your company, by adopting a 5-step cloud computing implementation plan.

Chapter 6: Security Dynamics of Cloud Computing by Khaled M. Khan. Analyze the cloud computing security requirements of different types of stakeholders and address the security challenges.

Chapter 7: Managing Compliance and Security for Cloud Computing by Jim Hietala and Mark Willoughby. Gain strategies for managing the various compliance and security requirements that will be impacted by cloud computing.

Chapter 8: Understanding SLAs for Cloud Services by G.R. Gangadharan. Explore real-world instances of cloud service-level agreements, what clauses you should look for, and how to avoid agreements that give your provider most of the rights and hardly any liability.

Chapter 9: Cloud Computing -- A New Paradigm in IT by San Murugesan. Gain an overview of cloud computing and its potential and limitations.

Chapter 10: Cloud Computing and Software as a Service -- The Hyper, the Hype, and the Facts with Gabriele Piccoli, Jeffrey M. Kaplan, Luca Mari, and Aurelio Ravarini. Discover the enablers and drivers behind the software-as-a-service and cloud computing trends, as well as the process by which customer acceptance evolves over time.

Chapter 11: Here Comes Cloud Computing with Rob Austin, Christine Davis, Tom DeMarco, Lynne Ellyn, Tim Lister, Andy Maher, Lou Mazzucchelli, Ken Orr, and Mark Seiden. Review the operational economics of cloud computing, its benefits and drawbacks, and receive food for thought as you consider utilizing cloud applications at your organization.

Chapter 12: A Cloud in the Data Center and Services from the Cloud by Brian J. Dooley. Discover the implication that cloud architectures have for the enterprise, and review some of the cloud services vendor offerings, including offerings from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce.com, AT&T, HP, Sun, and Yahoo!.

Chapter 13: Analytics in the Cloud -- Products, Issues, and Considerations by Curt Hall. Explore some of the issues concerning the use of cloud-based/on-demand data warehousing and analytic applications.

Chapter 14: Up, Up, and Away -- Technology Life in the Clouds by Steve Andriole. Learn to think strategically, not tactically, about how you want to leverage technology.

Authors: Steve Andriole, Rob Austin, Charlie Bess, Beth Cohen, Christine Davis, Tom DeMarco, Brian J. Dooley, Lynne Ellyn, Dr. G.R.Gangadharan, Curt Hall, Jeffrey J. Hardy, Jim Hietala, Jeffrey M. Kaplan, Khaled M. Khan, Tim Lister, Jason Liu, Andy Maher, Luca Mari, Lou Mazzucchelli, San Murugesan, Ken Orr, Gabriele Piccoli, Aurelio Ravarini, Ed Reynolds, Mark Seiden, and Mark Willoughby

Published:

July 2009, 258 pages, PDF

Table of Contents:

• Opening Statement
• An Agile Evolution: Why Kanban Is Catching On in Germany and Around the World
• Demystifying Kanban
• Kanban at an Insurance Company in the Netherlands
• Kanban for Help Desks: Managing the Unplannable
• Use of Kanban in Distributed Offshore Environments

Published: March 2011, 33 pages, PDF format

Authors: Masa K. Maeda, David J. Anderson, Arne Roock, Alan Shalloway, Dan Verweij, Olav Maassen, Roland Cuellar, Siddharta Govindaraj and Sreekanth Tadipatr

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

In this issue of Cutter IT Journal, we aim to shed some light on how value chain relates to both business architecture and enterprise architecture, and as a result, how it can contribute to aligning or integrating business priorities and IT programs. In the following articles, six experts from varied backgrounds will help you understand and explore the contribution of value chain. Their analyses provide guidance to those who are seeking a different way to revive or reinforce the dialogue between the CIO and the rest of the C-suite, or to ensure that the portfolio of business systems, as well as infrastructure projects, uses business imperatives rather than the appeal of new technology as its justification.

Table of Contents:

• Opening Statement
• Value Streams: Business Architecture's Guidepost to Business-IT Transformation
• Building Competitive Advantage Using the Enterprise Business Architecture
• Optimizing Business Architecture with Value Stream Analysis
• Capability Analysis with the Value Delivery Modeling Language

Published: April 2011, 39 pages, PDF format

Authors: Guest Editor Claude R. Baudoin, William Ulrich, Neal McWhorter, Ralph Whittle, Kraig Parkinson, Fred A. Cummins and Henk de Man

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

Published: August 2010, 32 pages, PDF format

Authors: Joseph Feller, Tadgh Nagle, Dave Sammon, Claude Baudoin, Lakshmanan G, Pradeep Kumar M, and Harish K, Simon Woodworth and Rohan Beckles

Online resource center clients: Access this report online

The report What Is a Complex Project Manager -- Really? by Robert K. Wysocki explores the role of a complex project manager, what disciplines should be present in his or her skills profile, where these unique professionals come from, and, finally, what can be done to develop a cadre of such professionals to meet the ever-growing demand for their services.

Table of Contents:

• What Is a Complex Project?
• What Is the Need for Complex Project Managers?
• Who Is a Complex Project Manager?
• What Are the Disciplines of a Complex Project Manager?
• Where Do Complex Project Managers Come From?
• How Should We Develop Complex Project Managers?
• How Should an Organization Prepare?

Be prepared to support complexity and uncertainty in your organization. Order this report today!

Published: June 2011, 17 pages, PDF format

Author: Robert K. Wysocki

Online resource center clients: Access this report online