Agile is here to stay. With its emphasis on lightweight processes, high-quality deliverables, flexibility in dealing with changing business priorities, short delivery cycles, higher team morale, and a whole host of other benefits, agile development offers a fresh approach to businesses seeking greater agility in their software engineering processes.

Agile over traditional practices brings in significant value; however our experience indicates that it is no silver bullet for the ills of enterprise application development.  Agile practices are developed based on several fundamental assumptions about the environment within which the project is executed.  In the right context, all promises of agile come alive; in the wrong context agile can add significant risks to the successful delivery of an engagement.  Especially in a global delivery environment, careful consideration of risk factors helps you avoid potential significant failures. (more…)

One of the biggest virtues that any enterprise application should possess is the simplicity of its interface which allows rapid and enthusiastic adoption of the application by its intended users. Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and specifically Web Content Management (WCM) solutions are no exception. However the majority of the Enterprise Content Management Solutions available today are surprisingly complex to operate. Though one of the biggest selling pitches used by vendors has been “the enablement of business users in content authoring”, time and again we have seen that reality is difficult to achieve. (more…)

Over the years the search for IT and/or Business ‘Excellence’ has led to a concept that is often misunderstood and can be very amorphous in definition and execution – Business/IT Transformation. The term also commonly used in the same context is that of a Centre of Excellence or ‘CoE’ aka ‘Competency Centre.’ In this post, I will not attempt to redefine either, but rather explain a bit more about how the various constituent parts of a CoE can support Transformation projects and more specifically Business Process Management (BPM) initiatives. (more…)

Organizations often develop country portals in silos. Each country/region may have its own IT department, which develops websites that cater to that region’s needs. While this provides a good customized solution catering to a specific country/region’s requirements, the branding and user experience across these various sites for the same corporation becomes very inconsistent. Many organizations have realized this and are actively developing a globalization strategy to create an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platform for multi-lingual and multi-cultural business requirements.

Based on my experience working with various global enterprises, I’m jotting down some of the best practices that many organizations typically miss out while developing a globalization strategy. (more…)

I reviewed a recent webinar given by Pascal Matzke and John McCarthy from Forrester Research on the Future of IT Services.  It was a “teaser” that provided insight into their soon to be released paper.  As veterans and leading analysts in the sector, they have watched the sector grow and mature.  They believe we are at the crossroads of re-invention.

Part of their position is the belief that the wholesale benefits of the labor arbitrage and staff augmentation approach that fueled Indian offshore growth wave is coming to an end.  It’s been a decade of hyper growth and the sector will start to level off as organizations have successfully achieved large scale reductions in TCO through the use of offshore labor.  With legions of offshore developers available to enterprises around the world competition will focus on rates as savvy sourcing managers continue to seek cost reduction.  But, assuming that labor cost can never reach zero, how much lower can it go before quality and service risk outweigh the cost benefits? (more…)

The next generation of IT Services will take a new approach to business process improvement and information technology.  The new approach uses Lean principles to deliver more than cost savings – it drives superior business performance through a relentless focus on waste reduction and continuous improvement. (more…)