Monthly Archives: December 2009

 
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“Partnering” — besides being a mandatory buzzword — is a curious term. Nowadays, instead of taking over a company, we partner with it. We don’t sell anything anymore; we partner. And now, rather than outsourcing, we create strategic partnerships. While the goal of an amicable and mutually rewarding relationship is admirable, what each party truly expects from the other in an outsourcing arrangement formed under a “partnering vision” is quite different. The client often wants a “well-behaving provider.” But what the client means by “well-behaving” is a provider that accepts nearly infinite scope creep without a commensurate increase in price, immediately reacts to the client’s ad hoc needs (at no charge), and performs what the …

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Dec 242009
 
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The crystal ball gazing continues. Here are more excerpts from Cutter Senior Consultants’ predictions for 2010 and beyond. Dave Rooney: Agile Software Development will follow the same pattern as two other game-changing trends — Relational Database Management Systems and Object-Oriented Programming over the upcoming decade. Claude Baudoin: Expect contractors and consultants to be in demand, and many of them will be ex-employees who, having found their past employer’s loyalty in short supply, will now be more interested in being their own boss than in rejoining as an employee. Ken Collier: Although Agile adoptions will proliferate, we will see an increase Agile project failures due to misunderstanding, misapplication, and misguided attempts to follow an “agile recipe”. …

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With the new year upon us, we asked Cutter’s Senior Consultants and Fellows for their business technology predictions. Their perspectives — as always — are quite thoughtful, thought-provoking, and varied. Projections cover the changing role of the CIO, what will happen in enterprise architecture, the increasing adoption of agile, the explosion of cloud computing, the impact of green initiatives, and more. We’re posting all the predictions on the Cutter website as they come in. Here are some excerpts: Israel Gat: I expect 2010 to be the first year of a prolonged golden age. San Murugesan: In 2010 and beyond, we will see growing interest and major developments in cloud computing, green IT, and mobile systems …

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What are the key elements for leadership success? The March 2010 issue of Cutter IT Journal — with Guest Editor Bob Furniss — invites useful and thoughtful analysis and debate on the challenges of leadership within the IT organization and how it can be most effectively achieved at all levels to maximize performance and achieve business goals. We invite anyone who is interested to send us an abstract for consideration. Cutter IT Journal Call for Papers Abstract Submission Date: 18 December 2009 Articles Due: 29 January 2010 Guidelines for Contributors

Dec 152009
 
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Enterprise architecture (EA) has become a mainstream activity in large or information-intensive organizations. Several years ago, Cutter IT Journal covered the emerging best practices in EA, and since then readers have requested that we check back to explore how things are evolving. What are EA programs focusing on in 2010 and beyond? Well, what has changed since then? In the past few years, the industry has seen a lot of flux: outsourcing, “the cloud,” Enterprise 2.0, Zachman Framework 2.0, TOGAF certification, a maturing definition of business architecture, the financial crisis, and new priorities. How have these affected EA in different organizations? What activities are they focused on now? What are the new issues? Not surprisingly, …

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Dec 082009
 
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“Writing is a form of thinking, whatever the subject,” says William Zinsser (Writing to Learn). If, as Zinsser says, learning to write well is critical to learning well, then agile team members might do well to work on their writing skills. The entire results of software projects are writings. Whether the output is executable code, test scripts, requirements documents, training plans, or project status reports, they are all, in some fashion, writing. Writing is both a form of thinking and the results from that thinking—and unfortunately, technical education programs rarely focus on writing skills. Zinsser writes, “My hope was to demystify writing for the science types and to demystify science for the humanities types.” His …

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I’ve got a tune stuck in my head again today. Perhaps this happens to you ocassionally too. It’s triggered subliminally by means totally unrelated to music. Fortunately for me, now that my children have grown into teenagers, the tune is less likely to be The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round or The Barney Song! On a nearly daily basis, I read or hear something profound or innovative around the topic of Cloud Computing. The debate surrounding cloud security, privacy, and control now triggers a brain-born rendition of Get Off Of My Cloud, originally recorded in 1965 by the British rock band, the Rolling Stones. “Hey! You! Get off of my cloud Don’t …

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There is a problem that is festering in many IT organizations: the old maxim “think before you do” has been replaced with “do.” I suggest that part of the problem is that the computer industry has been a little too successful selling its products. Rapid and rabid proliferation of PCs and PC software has given users a sense of mastery of the technology that is, in the main, unwarranted. Most drivers, when asked, will rate themselves “above average,” yet I wouldn’t want to run into them on a racetrack. Likewise, many, if not most, business PC users have been lulled into a false sense of IT competence by virtue of their dalliances with spreadsheets, word …

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