Our current poll wants to know if your internal applications are developed exclusively inside your organisation or if you use outsourcing software development services. Go to [poll] to participate and to see intermediate results.

*** Read for You *******************************************************

News comes from the Department of Labor that productivity growth in nonfarm business in the U.S. hit a critical number in the third quarter. That number was zero, as in naught, as in nothing, no growth at all, not even something you could round up to a minuscule decimal of some kind. [...]

Let's look at what forces are coming together to suppress productivity growth, to see if we can augment them in some way. [...]

Second, I'm thinking that the reason we kept being more productive in the first place wasn't so good. When I started out, my department had 20 people rushing around working very hard. Then the corporation, under pressure from Wall Street to grow our stock price every day, decided to do what analysts, investment bankers, and business reporters all agree is the most terrific thing a successful enterprise can do: fire a bunch of people and make those who remain do the work that used to be done by others. Before long, we had ten people doing the work of 20. This naturally produced impressive gains in individual productivity. Of course it did! But at what cost, I ask you. Actually, I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. A big one.

The things that's happened now is that corporate America is just about done firing people, because if management wants to fire any more people, it's going to have to start firing itself. That's expensive. Firing an executive is often more expensive than retaining him.[...]

Source: Stanley Bing, "The 0% Solution", Fortune, December 18, 2006

No comments ;o)

*** Books **************************************************************

This book presents a top-down approach to define an information system architecture at the enterprise level. It begins with a short presentation of the Zachman Framework that is used as the basic tool to analyse enterprise architecture. A first part is then devoted to present approaches used to express the strategy. A second part describes the techniques used to translate the strategic goals at the information system level with data and process modelling. Finally, a third part discusses current technologies and products involved to integrate applications and deploy the enterprise architecture. A CD-ROM is provided with the book. It contains problems and solutions to apply the concepts presented in the book, products information and some modelling tools.

Clive Finkelstein is a founding father of Information Engineering and he continues to apply its principles. The goal is to help large organisations to manage their complex information systems. Being strategic doesn't imply always multi-years projects. The book states that the enterprise architecture portfolio plan for a large company can be created in 8-12 weeks. It also recommends 2 days workshops to define sub-systems that have a 3 months delivery objective. Many examples are provided in the book.

This book is recommended for people that are managing applications or portfolios of applications at the enterprise level. It provides also valuable knowledge for business analysts/architects with a detailed examination of the data and process modelling activities and the definition of coherent and autonomous sub-systems. The book has close to 500 pages of dense material, but each chapter could be used separately according to your needs.

To get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.com click below:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580537138/methotools-20

To get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.co.uk click below:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1580537138/methotools-21

------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you liked the articles of Bas De Baar and Mark Collins-Cope in our Winter 2006 issue, find more about their knowledge in the following books:

This book was written as a crash course for people with no project management background but who still are expected to manage a small software development project. It cuts through the jargon and gives you the basics: practical advice on where to start, what you should focus on, and where you can cut some corners.

To get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.com click below:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1895186757/methotools-20

To get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.co.uk click below:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1895186757/methotools-21

This book describes using the ICONIX Process (an object modelling process) in an agile software project. To do this, the book defines a core agile subset—so those of you who want to "get agile" need not spend years learning to do it. Instead, you can simply read this book and apply the core subset of techniques. The book follows a real-life .NET/C# project from inception and UML modelling, to working code—through several iterations.

To get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.com click below:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590594649/methotools-20

To get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.co.uk click below:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590594649/methotools-21

*** Conferences ********************************************************

EclipseCon is the premier technical and user conference focusing on the power of the Eclipse platform. From implementers to users, and everyone in between, if you are using, building, or considering Eclipse, EclipseCon is the conference you need to attend.

http://www.eclipsecon.org

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Delegates will hear first-hand from the creators, innovators, leaders and early adopters of AJAX, and a slew of leading vendors will provide sneak-peeks of the very latest frameworks, tools, products and applications during the conference, which will have over 100 sessions and presentations given by 125 different speakers - the largest AJAX-focused speaker faculty ever assembled in one place at one time. Conference & Expo 2007 East will be jump-started with a full one-day "AJAX University Boot Camp", personally led by Web 2.0 and AJAX guru Dion Hinchcliffe.

http://www.ajaxworldexpo.com/

Pay $50 less registering as a Methods & Tools reader. Use our coupon codes. The registration page: https://www3.sys-con.com/mar07/registernew.cfm. Golden Pass Coupon Code is "methodsgold", Bootcamp Pass Coupon Code is "methodsboot", Golden Pass and Bootcamp Coupon Code is "methodspackage"

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TheServerSide Java Symposium is the community's only enterprise Java conference on emerging technologies. Attend 70+ sessions led by key contributors, thought leaders & experts on topics including: SOA, JSF, Hibernate, Testing/QA, Ajax, Interoperability, Security and much more!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some of our last additions http://www.softdevarticles.com:

* Use Test Categorization for Agile Builds

This article reveals the three categories of testing needed to ensure end-to-end system soundness and then shows you how to automatically sort and run tests by category.

http://www.softdevarticles.com/modules/weblinks/singlelink.php?lid=462

* Lessons Learned Using Agile Methods on Large Defense Contracts

This article shares the latest lessons learned on what is working and what isn’t working when applying agile software development on large government defense projects.

http://www.softdevarticles.com/modules/weblinks/singlelink.php?lid=468

* Ajax Tradeoffs: The Many Flavors of XML

The X in Ajax is for XML, but XML is not a language, it is a toolkit for building languages. So your first decision is: do you use an existing language, or build your own? Several tradeoffs are involved.

http://www.softdevarticles.com/modules/weblinks/singlelink.php?lid=458

------------------------------------------------------------------------

In future issues, you will find articles on:

• Process Improvement – Is it a Lottery?
• Strategic Modeling for Rapid Delivery of Enterprise Architecture
• Fear of Intervention
• Software Release Criteria
• TDD for Embedded Software
• What's Wrong with Agile Approaches
• Evaluating Web Testing Tools
• Requirements for Outsourcing

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Features: Kent Beck Interview; C# 2.0 & 3.0 Overview; Refactoring Databases; OODBMS Revisited; How to Work with Legacy Code

Opinion: Grady Booch on SOA; Kevlin Henney - Why the Waterfall Fails; Matt Stephens - Ruby - I Love You (Not)

http://www.objectiveviewmagazine.com/

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you want to recruit software development professionals? Methods & Tools reaches each month more than 40'000 of them. You can place a job ad with us for $15 each line for the first five lines and $10 for additional lines. These ads will be visible in our text or PDF issues AND on our web sites for as long as three months. [Contact] us if you are interested.

The content of this publication cannot be reproduced without prior written consent of the publisher
Copyright (C) 2007, Martinig & Associates