Many businesses find that commercial software fails to meet their exact needs, and that they have to either develop their own software in-house, or pay experts to do this task for them - and in either case, software development has to be done. However, software development projects have a very poor track record, and tend to be delivered late and/or fail to meet the expectations of the business and its management. The larger the project, the greater the difficulties that are reported after it fails - good examples of this include most Government software projects, which tend to run millions over budget and then underperform spectacularly. This Report looks at the reasons why application development projects often go so badly wrong, and why so many efforts to correct predictable problems also fail. One of the most important reasons is that there is an enormous gap between the developers who work on application projects, and the managers who set the goals of the projects. Regardless of how good the technology may be that is being used, if these two groups do not talk to each other, the project is at risk of failure - and most project managers seem to be at a loss how to deal with this problem. Best practices designed to manage the above issue, along with other related problems along the whole application development lifecycle, are provided throughout this Report. The emphasis in application development today is very much on management: the need to manage the end-to-end application lifecycle process, including management of applications once they are released into production, the need to manage feedback between different lifecycle phases, and the need to manage project resources and costs. There is increasing recognition that IT needs to be made transparent to the business and fit within mainstream business management. For that to happen the cultural divide between IT and the business will need to be bridged: there are new tools and methods that can facilitate that process when management is willing to take a more active role in aligning IT with the business. One of the drivers that is making that happen is compliance and IT governance. The pressures stemming from compliance and internal governance are considerable today, leading to the need to manage the whole application development lifecycle. The code that is developed and deployed within enterprise applications is not only subject to increased control and scrutiny, but must also be aligned to the objectives and constraints of the business as a whole. In short, the application development process has become of strategic importance within the organisation.Price: $
Reference Code: BGTC0030
Measuring IT Costs and Value
Published: 01 Sep 2005
Description
Although every business invests money in its IT resources, it is often the case that these same businesses have very little idea if the investments have paid for themselves. Many companies tend to think of IT as being something that they have to spend money on to keep pace with their competitors, and can even resent the fact - the result being that IT is looked on as being a cost centre, something that has to be maintained, instead of a resource that could improve the company\u2019s ability to compete in the market place. This Report looks into the reasons why IT can be so badly misunderstood. Some of the most common problems involve the fact that measuring IT performance is a difficult and time consuming exercise, and that many companies do not believe that they have the time, money, or right people to keep doing this job - however, we argue that failing to do this measurement, and to keep doing it on an ongoing basis, is absolutely essential. It should be common sense that we cannot decide how much something is worth unless we can measure what it means to us - but businesses have allowed themselves to be put off by the difficulty of doing this. Having established the importance of measuring the performance of IT and the effects that its use has throughout the business, the Report defines and assesses the various methods that can be used, explaining the differences between them and the areas where their use is most appropriate. This is where methods such as Enterprise Architecture, business case, and Balanced Scorecards come into their own. A well-prepared business case is a way of putting forward project details in a standard format, which helps purvey professional competency and makes it easier to compare projects. Balanced Scorecards can provide a mechanism for monitoring and conveying IT performance that simply encapsulates the state of the IT environment. However, it is necessary for IT management to agree a small number of metrics with stakeholders, get buy-in from staff, and instigate a regular review process. The role of IT management is shifting away from being the guardians of technology to focusing more on aspects such as investment planning, budgeting, governance, service quality, and risk management. Understanding value is crucial to all of these activities, making this a Report that should be of interest to a wide range of readers.Price: $
Reference Code: BGTC0029
Security Management
Published: 01 Jun 2005
Description
The principal objectives of this report are to provide security decision makers - Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), Chief Security Officers (CSOs), Chief Risk Officers (CROs), and other key security staff with a detailed understanding of Security Management, in order to highlight the importance and benefits that can be achieved from the building of an integrated Security Management infrastructure. Butler Group believes that this involves taking the key decision to move on from deploying point-based protection systems, which only deal with single issues, to a situation where the whole protection infrastructure can be properly managed. Key areas covered will include: Highlighting the approach that should be taken to building a Security Management Infrastructure. Putting together the appropriate building blocks as they apply to the business. Delivering security services that support the whole user community. Reviewing the key technology solutions that need to be considered when building towards the delivery of Security Management.Price: $
Reference Code: BGTC0028
Integration Technologies
Published: 01 Jun 2005
Description
The typical organisation is now extremely complex, with dozens of different applications, databases, and processes all trying to interoperate at once. Although the ideal scenario would be that all these different pieces would come together and act as a single, well-oiled machine, in reality the picture is very different; the pieces of the puzzle are more likely to interfere with each other, causing system failures and crashes, than they are to mesh together. This is a serious business problem, and various approaches have tried to solve it; some of the most recent involve the use of advanced technologies and business models, such as Service-Oriented Architectures and the Enterprise Service Bus. Deployment of integration is a serious corporate responsibility, and this Report will be of interest to various C-level executives, as well as providing much-needed support to the management teams with the responsibility of making the strategy work. Topics include definitions of the advances that have been made in the integration space, including assessment of how organisations can plan for greater returns on their investment.Price: $
Reference Code: BGTC0027
E-Mail Management Vendor Solutions
Published: 01 Jun 2005
Description
This Report is intended as an accompanying volume to the E-mail Management Technology Management and Strategy Report published by Butler Group in June 2004. The original Report did not contain any Technology Audits or product comparisons. However, it did identify many vendor products in each of the e-mail management areas that were examined, namely: Security Management. Policy Management. E-mail Archiving. Knowledge Management and Collaboration. We believe that to implement a comprehensive e-mail management solution, functionality in the areas of security management, policy management, and e-mail archiving are essential. Most organisations will also require some form of Knowledge Management and Collaboration tools, but this functionality is not specific to e-mail management, and is likely to be part of a much wider solution, such as Enterprise Content Management (ECM).At present, in order to implement a comprehensive e-mail management solution, a number of point products are required, as no single vendor yet provides functionality across all of the e-mail management areas. However, there are indications that vendors are beginning to move towards offering solutions rather than point products. For example, many of the security vendors also provide some form of policy management to control the content of e-mails leaving the organisation, as well as managing inbound messages. However, they do not incorporate any of the supervisory features present in dedicated e-mail policy management products. It is our view that in the not-too-distant future security management must be combined with e-mail archiving. At this stage, for organisations that do not require complex policy management functionality to address the requirements of regulatory bodies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), existing point products will provide an appropriate e-mail management solution. There are a number of different approaches to implementing e-mail management. The first is to purchase all of the applications required taking a best-of-breed approach, using the solutions from the vendor in each category that provides the functionality that best meets the needs of the organisation. Another approach is to use a bundled solution from a single vendor that provides functionality in more than one category. Alternatively, outsourcing e-mail management is another option, and one that is more affordable for some organisations. This Report contains 32 Technology Audits including many of the products that were featured in the original Report. However, because of the rapid developments of products, particularly in the security space, some of the Technology Audits review different products to those mentioned in the original Report. All of the vendors featured in the original Report were contacted with a view to creating new Technology Audits or updating existing Technology Audits. However, some vendors declined the offer, and so we have included the latest Technology Audits that are available for these products. Unlike normal Technology Comparison and Evaluation Reports from Butler Group, there are no direct comparisons between products within the Report. The reason for this is that the products cover such a diverse range of technologies that it would be impossible to devise a means to compare them fairly and provide value to readers of the Report. Each Technology Audit is therefore a stand-alone document. To reflect the beginnings of convergence in the technology areas featured, the Technology Audits are arranged into three Sections: Corporate E-mail Systems - Section 3. These were featured and compared in the original Report. Security and Policy Management - Section 4. This Section incorporates Technology Audits of products that were included in the Security and Policy Management Sections of the original Report, to reflect the fact that most Security Management solutions now incorporate some policy management capabilities. E-mail Lifecycle Management - Section 5. This Section includes e-mail archiving products and Records Management solutions that support the archiving of e-mails. It also includes Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) solutions and storage products that support e-mail archives. The Technology Audits in this Report are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all of the products that have been reviewed in this area by Butler Group. There are reviews of additional products in the e-mail management area of the Butler Group Web site. Some of these products are included in the Report as Vendor Profiles in Section 6 of this Report.Price: $
Reference Code: BGTC0026
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