Leadership » The Cutter Blog

Posts Tagged 'Leadership'

What’s on Tap for Day 2 of Summit: Executive Education+

Anne Mullaney | Jun 7, 2013 No Responses

Jun 072013

What’s on Tap for Day 2 of Summit: Executive Education+

The Cutter Summit program includes a mix of keynotes with accompanying panel sessions, case studies, interactive exercises, roundtable discussions, lightning talks, half-day immersion workshops and seminars, and many, many networking opps. The other day I wrote about the keynote and case study that will take place of the first day, Nov 4, of this Fall’s Summit. Today I’ll highlight the “main events” for the second day. (Watch for another post on roundtables and lightning talks.) Israel Gat will kick off the morning, keynoting on the impending explosion of the API economy. Israel is well-known for his expertise on Agile and software/product development governance supported by technical debt assessment and valuation, but he actually spends much …

Executive Education Created Just for Business Technologists

Anne Mullaney | Jun 6, 2013 No Responses

Jun 062013

Executive Education Created Just for Business Technologists

“Executive education” usually brings a university classroom to my mind, the kind you find on an ivy-walled campus. Cutter’s executive education (which we call Summit 2013), however, is a little different: it takes place next-door to a prestigious university. Yep, Summit 2013 will be held at Le Meridien Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the edge of the MIT campus. The program is chock-full of stellar sessions. The 3-day event kicks off on Nov. 4 with a keynote on The Evolving Role of 21st Century Technology Leaders by Robert D. Scott. Robert, former VP of Innovation & Architecture at Procter & Gamble (where he also served in CIO positions, both corporate and business unit). Robert is …

Be the Management You Want to Change — An Open Letter to Agilists

Christopher Avery | Sep 11, 2012 3 Responses

Sep 112012

Be the Management You Want to Change — An Open Letter to Agilists

Dear Agilist, Everywhere I go I hear the same thing: “Culture and management are the major impediments to enterprise agile adoption.” Indeed, hundreds of us recently sought out the annual industry conference presentations and panels on how to change management — and culture — to facilitate the agile organization. I propose you and I stop hoping for management to change. Instead, why don’t we become the change we want management to be? That’s right, become a manager! Why the heck not? Here’s my reasoning. If you are skilled in the disciplines of: Prioritizing based on value, quality, and risk reduction Self-organizing cross-functional teamwork Transparent communication Making work visible Limiting work in process Feedback loops for sensing …

Is Leadership a Science?

Christine Generali | Dec 15, 2011 No Responses

Dec 152011

CIOs and their management teams are facing a leadership crises – with the emphasis on MORE – be more productive, more efficient, more creative, more collaborative, more customer focused and more business savvy. How can leaders inspire their teams to produce technical innovation in a timely, efficient manner? What approaches – or maybe even a science – can help leaders meet these increasing demands? The March 2012 Cutter IT Journal, with Guest Editor Lynne Ellyn, will address these questions. Please send us your ideas – proposals of interest are due 28 December 2011. To respond, please visit http://www.cutter.com/content-and-analysis/journals-and-reports/cutter-it-journal/callforpapers02.html

Steve Jobs: Greater than Scipio Africanus?

Vince Kellen, Ph.D. | Oct 14, 2011 No Responses

Oct 142011

Steve Jobs: Greater than Scipio Africanus?

As expected and sudden was the inevitable and tragic end to Steve Jobs’s life, so too is it surprising yet necessary that an outpouring of praise and emotion would follow. We all loved his inventions. The Twitterverse was rightfully aflame with stories about Steve. As if drawn nearly as perfectly as the interfaces he and his team dedicated their lives to, the final measure of his arc marks a very clean and a nearly perfect transition into history. The last brilliant burst that characterized his second tenure at the helm of Apple was a perfect, if not — from today’s vantage point — a seemingly inevitable concluding crescendo. Beethoven would have been proud. Jobs will …

The Neuroscience of Leadership

Lynne Ellyn | Jul 26, 2011 4 Responses

Jul 262011

The latest findings in neuroscience have broad implications for all aspects of business, from product design to leadership. Hot topics include human task performance, learning, motivation, attention, and memory. Deep insights from this research can lead to the creation of better software. For the IT professional, this will change the way software is designed and developed. It will also change how software teams are assembled and managed. Software-enabled tasks are astonishingly diverse — reporting an electrical outage to the utility company, comparing investment portfolios, analyzing blood test results, trading commodities, ordering books, or even playing Angry Birds. As diverse as these tasks are, each draws on the attention, learning, motivation, and memory of its users. …

Organizing for Demand Management: Egoless Requirements

Paul Allen | Dec 14, 2010 2 Responses

Dec 142010

Organizing for Demand Management: Egoless Requirements

Too often IT projects are initiated on the basis of the “who shouts loudest” syndrome, dominated by the biggest egos in the business management arena. Another form of this malaise arises when internal politics, with business unit managers jockeying for position, sidelines the needs of the organization as a whole. If demand management is to be applied effectively to help align IT with business needs, then a certain objectivity must be achieved. Older readers may recall the idea of egoless programming advocated by Gerald Weinberg nearly 40 years ago [1]. Simply put, the concept of egoless programming advocates that a programmer should review the code of another programmer in an objective way such that personal …

Building an Agile Organization with Agile Leaders

Jim Highsmith | Aug 24, 2010 2 Responses

Aug 242010

In a recent e-mail exchange with Cutter Fellow Lynne Ellyn (SVP and CIO of DTE), she mentioned that one characteristic of agile leaders is providing focus and clarity for an organization or team. Her comments sparked my thinking about why it’s so hard to be a good agile leader. We tend to create lists of what leaders do or their agilelike behaviors, but these lists and the item descriptions obscure the difficulty in actually being an agile leader. Consider providing focus and clarity. It sounds simple, but it’s not. Why do we embrace agility in the first place? Agility helps us manage change and uncertainty. Turbulence — business, economic, and technological — creates change, which …

Toxic Leaders and Personal Simplicity

Vince Kellen, Ph.D. | Sep 5, 2009 1 Response

Sep 052009

“I didn’t take this position for the money,” he said looking at me somewhat smugly and for a very brief moment perhaps too honestly. “I did it for the power.” I remember the conversation well. It was about 15 years ago. As a consultant then, I was, from time to time, in the offices of business leaders who I was lucky enough to do business with. Obviously this was a case of a young manager impressing me with his new-found power. I could see the glint in his eye as he relished the chance to exercise power. As I sat there, I began to wonder. Has he been telling everyone his motives behind the advancement? …

Are You Justifying IT … Again?

Mike Rosen | Jul 16, 2009 1 Response

Jul 162009

I try to keep up with what’s going on in the industry by reading magazines, articles, blogs, and so on. Perhaps it’s the economy, or just coincidence, but in the past few months, there seem to have been more than enough articles about the impotence of IT. One editorial in Information Week quoted a survey that asked IT professionals to rank 10 items that would contribute to improving their job productivity. Top items were: Better guidance from business leaders on the most important processes, measures, and metrics. A clearer sense of corporate strategy from top executives. More support from top executives to implement policies and procedures companywide. More money and more staff ranked at the …

Page 1 of 212 »

Avatars by Sterling Adventures

About the Blog

The Cutter Blog is an offshoot of Cutter Consortium, a boutique IT and Business Strategy consulting firm located in Boston, MA. Cutter's worldwide network of consultants offers clients analysis of the lastest industry trends, customized consulting and executive education opportunities.

Offering more than just a quick fix -- our size and focus allows us to "get deep" into the challenges faced by our clients so we can provide real and lasting solutions. Want to know more? Visit www.cutter.com.

Posts Tagged 'Leadership'

Be the Management You Want to Change — An Open Letter to Agilists

Is Leadership a Science?

Steve Jobs: Greater than Scipio Africanus?

The Neuroscience of Leadership

Organizing for Demand Management: Egoless Requirements

Building an Agile Organization with Agile Leaders

Toxic Leaders and Personal Simplicity

Are You Justifying IT … Again?

Blog Authors

Follow Us

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Categories

About the Blog

Twitter Updates

In Our Bookstore