Outsourcing big is not always beautiful. Indeed, sometimes outsourcing big can be a blunder. For example, on Friday, Information Age reported a tally of the UK government’s project management track record, and found that IT projects count among its worst failures. Why? “Government needs to stop thinking that when it comes to procuring IT systems, big [...]

A primary function of IT architecture is managing change. This change happens at varying rates in and between levels of abstraction (think of wind moving at different speeds at different altitudes). So we can think of “horizontal” change — change in time within a particular level — as well as “vertical change” — the relationship [...]

I am sitting here, sipping my free cup of coffee at McDonald’s, looking across the parking lot at the huge going-out-of-business banners strung across the entrance to my local Circuit City store. “I wonder,” I joke with the McDonald’s manager, who I know pretty well, “if they had to pay for those banners [...]

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 [...]

Almost a month ago I told you about the cover story Bob Charette wrote for IEEE Spectrum on the problems in defense acquisition. Today, Robin Young of the NPR show Here & Now interviewed Bob about the article. You can listen to it here. The part with Bob begins about 5 minutes in, and lasts [...]

Cutter’s Bob Charette has written the cover story, “What’s Wrong With Weapons Acquisitions?,” for this month’s IEEE Spectrum. The article highlights the problems in defense acquisition: spiraling costs, extremely lengthy project delays, politics trumping technology, a lack of skilled workers, and a dearth of institutional knowledge as a result of outsourcing. Sound familiar? The scope [...]

We were saddened to learn that a former member of Cutter Consortium’s Enterprise Risk Management & Governance advisory service, Art Gemmer, passed away in his sleep. Art helped pioneer project and program risk management at Rockwell Collins, where he worked for 27 years before leaving and starting his own consulting company. [...]

The financial community recently seems to have added a new twist to the advice given in Shakespeare’s Henry VI (Part 2) with regard to lawyers in the wake of the US $130-billion-plus write-offs that are increasing daily due to the subprime mortgage debacle.
The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce recently fired its chief [...]

Beat ‘em up. Knock ‘em down. Slap ‘em around. Keep them on a short leash. Teach them a lesson. Make ‘em behave. Vendors, that is.
This phrase has recently seeped into common IT parlance. I’ve even heard vendors, typically large ones, say that the reason we should buy their wares is that they can then provide [...]

In the last year or two, I’ve become very interested in cyberflexing. Because I’m a member of a National Academy of Sciences study (in progress) on the subject of “Ethical and Political Implications of Offensive Information Operations,” I must mention that what I’m saying here are personal opinions on many of the issues and not [...]