Monthly Archives: January 2009

Welcome Israel Gat and Bob Furniss!

 Anne Mullaney | Jan 29, 2009  No Responses
Jan 292009
 
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Israel Gat and Bob Furniss have joined Cutter’s team of expert Senior Consultants. Most recently, Israel Gat led the Agile transformation at BMC Software. Under his leadership, BMC software development increased Scrum users from zero to 1,000 in four years. [Michael Mah and Mike Lunt of BMC Software described this transformation in an Executive Report they wrote for Cutter clients, How Agile Projects Measure Up, and What This Means to You.] Israel is currently focusing on enterprise-level agile deployments. He’s written a series of Executive Updates for Cutter’s Agile practice; you can read his To Release No More, Or To Release Always — Part I: The Myth here. Bob Furniss’s sweet spot is understanding and …

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 Agile Project Management, Business Intelligence, Business-IT Strategies, News  Tagged with: , ,

Enterprise Architecture Resolutions for 2009

 Mike Rosen | Jan 26, 2009  2 Responses
Jan 262009
 
Enterprise Architecture Resolutions for 2009

As 2009 brings dramatic change to the economy, politics, and IT, some consistency might be in order. So, as I have in past years, I’m making suggestions for New Year’s resolutions for enterprise architects. Execute on Your Roadmap Architecture takes a long time to develop and deliver. There’s a bewildering array of models, processes, options, priorities, and skills needed to achieve enterprise goals. Of course, this cannot be delivered all at once but needs to be phased in over time. How do we know what to do when? First, we need to have a vision of our architectural end state (the point at which enterprise IT is in alignment with both business and technology goals …

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 Enterprise Architecture, Web 2.0  Tagged with: , ,

What Are You Doing For Data Privacy Day On January 28?

 Rebecca Herold | Jan 25, 2009  5 Responses
Jan 252009
 
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Did you KNOW that January 28 was international Data Privacy Day? I bet most of you did not. Too bad. The way to help improve privacy practices within organizations is to raise awareness of privacy issues. I recently blogged about Data Privacy Day here and here. Are you planning to do something for Data Privacy Day? If so, please let us know! I love to hear what folks do to observe such days, and to help raise awareness of information security and privacy issues. Or, if you are not planning to do something, why? Too late of notice? You don’t see the point of doing anything? You think it is dumb? You think…???? Let us know!

 News, Security+Privacy  Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

The 31-Square-Foot Architecture

 Jens Coldewey | Jan 19, 2009  2 Responses
Jan 192009
 
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How much architecture does an agile team need up front? Most agile methods are surprisingly silent when it comes to this question. Scrum regards architecture as an issue the team has to deal with on its own discretion — and thus does not include any advice. In Crystal Clear: A Human-Powered Methodology for Small Teams, Cutter Senior Consultant Alistair Cockburn suggests having a lead designer who is responsible for creating the system architecture description — “usually fairly early in the first iteration” — but also emphasizes that “the architecture will probably evolve” and gives two strategies to help evolving: Walking Skeleton and Incremental Rearchitecture. XP finally suggests using a metaphor to keep up the technical …

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 Agile Project Management, Enterprise Architecture  Tagged with: , , , ,

Benson and Bugnitz put Asset Management into Focus

 Anne Mullaney | Jan 19, 2009  No Responses
Jan 192009
 
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According to Cutter’s Bob Benson and Tom Bugnitz, asset management is one of those concepts that the IT profession has made vague and less than understandable. In a recent Cutter Business-IT Strategies E-Mail Advisor they’ve set the record straight about asset management. Asset management is about assets. These are things we buy or make. They have costs, location, utilization, performance, maintenance/upgrades/replacements, current value and condition, risks, compatibility. They have a lifecycle. In practical terms, asset management most often covers infrastructure components and applications. Asset management has two value propositions. 1) Asset tracking — supports the day-to-day operations of the IT organization, including procurement, maintenance, help desk support, and pricing/charging. 2) Asset assessment and management — …

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 Business-IT Strategies  Tagged with: , ,

Schedule Problems? Extend It.

 Anne Mullaney | Jan 14, 2009  4 Responses
Jan 142009
 
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My colleague, Kim Leonard, highlighted some of the first analyses of Cutter’s recent study on software estimation back in November (Software estimation “a tough beast to control“). Elli Bennatan‘s analysis is ongoing; here are some of the latest highlights: In 2002, the most common remedy for schedule problems was overtime. Now, six years later, a Cutter Consortium survey has revealed some interesting news: when projects run into scheduling problems, the two most common remedies are extending the schedule and reducing functionality, with overtime relegated to third place, followed by adding staff. … To a large degree, the shift away from adding overtime indicates a positive change in culture. Organizational behavior is improving!” Previous Cutter Consortium …

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 Agile Project Management, Benchmarking+Surveys, Business Technology Trends  Tagged with: , , ,

The Convergence of Information Security, Privacy and Compliance

 Christine Generali | Jan 9, 2009  1 Response
Jan 092009
 
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The April 2009 Cutter IT Journal — with Guest Editor Cutter Senior Consultant Rebecca Herold, recently named one of the “Best Privacy Advisers” and “Best Privacy Consultancies” of 2008 by Computerworld — invites insightful debate on and analyses of approaches organizations are taking to ensure that information security, privacy and compliance areas collaborate, and how to address the associated convergence issues. What are the information security, privacy and compliance issues that impact organizations most significantly? What are the best practices for addressing the associated compliance requirements? What are the best ways to manage convergence? How can gaps be avoided? How can conflicts be resolved? Cutter IT Journal Call for Papers Rebecca Herold, Guest Editor Abstract …

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 General, Outsourcing, Security+Privacy

(The Acronym) SOA is (Perhaps) Dead (at Some Companies); Long Live Services

 Doug Barry | Jan 8, 2009  1 Response
Jan 082009
 
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On Monday, Anne Thomas Manes published SOA is Dead; Long Live Services on her blog at the Burton Group. My last check using Google showed that at least 50 bloggers have referenced her posting. Some have delighted in Anne’s statement that “It’s time to accept reality. SOA fatigue has turned into SOA disillusionment.” This point-of-view is further supported by a presentation Anne gave earlier this year that reported a Burton Group study that showed 50% of SOA projects were a complete failure and another 30 percent were considered not wholly successful in the 20 companies studied. This is pretty dismal stuff. Paul Krill from Computerworld reported on Anne’s posting in SOA gets an obituary. You …

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 Enterprise Architecture  Tagged with: , , ,

Forget the Naysayers – Web 2.0 Is Making an Impact in the Enterprise

 Curt Hall | Jan 6, 2009  No Responses
Jan 062009
 
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In the light of the hype over Web 2.0 this past year, I want to stress that organizations are making use of the techniques to improve the collaboration capabilities of their BI and business performance management initiatives. In fact, according to the results of our recent survey, slightly more than one-quarter of end-user organizations are currently using Web 2.0 techniques to support their BI users. This finding comes from a survey conducted in October 2008 of 85 end-user organizations based worldwide. It was designed to measure the extent that organizations are implementing various types of BI, data warehousing, and other analytic technologies and practices. Specifically, survey participants were asked “Is your organization using blogs, wikis, …

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 Business Intelligence, Business Technology Trends, Web 2.0  Tagged with: , , , ,

Rebecca Herold: One of the Best

 Anne Mullaney | Jan 6, 2009  1 Response
Jan 062009
 
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Cutter Senior Consultant Rebecca Herold has been named one of the best privacy experts of 2008 (a distinction she also won in 2007). This was the third year Jay Cline surveyed people responsible for data protection to discover who is the best at navigating the complexities of customer and employee data management. His analysis appeared in Computerworld on Dec. 4. In response to the question, Which person — whether a lawyer, consultant or corporate privacy officer — do you think is the top global expert on data privacy and protection?, Rebecca ranked 5th in the world. Congratulations, Rebecca! Re-Tweet this on Twitter: @cuttertweets Cutter’s Rebecca Herold: One of the Best on Privacy http://tinyurl.com/9c77sh (copy-and-paste)

 News, Security+Privacy  Tagged with: , ,

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