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Greetings!
We're working to bring you valuable and informative content in each newsletter on a quarterly basis. If you have ideas for future topics or have expertise you want to share with others, please let us know! We want to continue to be a source you can come to, but we know you have knowledge and experience to contribute as well. In the meantime, hope you enjoy this issue on Managed Software Services and Apply Agile to Waterfall Projects. More resources can also be found on the Capstone resources page of our Web site. And don't forget to sign up for the BI Tools Vendor Grudge Match in Chicago next month! Even if you can't attend, send us the questions you'd like vendors to answer, and we'll share their responses in a comparative matrix!
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Managed Software Services:
Effective Outsourcing
By Randy Ott
It's a no-brainer: every company wants to improve the productivity of its employees, leading to increased overall company productivity and profitability. Especially in today's economic climate, Information Technology (IT) offers some extraordinary opportunities to drive out inefficiencies in an organization. One key area where these efficiencies have yet to be maximized by most businesses is in regard to Managed Software Services. Your enterprise contains important-many times mission critical-applications that are vital to your business. Their maintenance and support is a crucial, but time consuming and costly. Managed Software Services (MSS) provide a cost-effective mechanism for outsourcing the maintenance and support of an organization's information systems, software applications, or technical infrastructure.
Read MoreVisit Capstone's web site to continue this article ... Article Index IntroductionDoing More with LessProductivity and MoraleService Level Guarantees
Return on Investment
Take Action |
BI Tool Vendors Showdown
September 8 @ 8-10:30 AM, Chicago, IL
 Coming NEXT WEEK! Don't miss out on this exciting event. Capstone is hosting an extended- hours roundtable, pitting vendor against vendor in a no-holds-barred grudge match showdown among four top
Come prepared to
rumble, and to get your questions answered!
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Applying Agile Best Practices to Waterfall Projects
By Jim Richards
 A variety of iterative methods have
been developed in response to the weakness of the waterfall model.
From Spiral, Rational Unified Process, Enterprise Unified Process to
customized iterative process and proprietary iterative processes, businesses are looking for ways to add concrete, immediate value through business intelligence. But
what's important is how to implement the best iterative,
mainly Agile practices, in an organization that is using waterfall--or
maybe no real processes at all.
Agile's best practices can be
implemented in any environment or within any methodology, as a team,
individually, by department or even enterprise-wide. Successful
application development and integration requires a thorough
understanding of existing IT infrastructure and business processes.
Consider three different key aspects
implemented covertly or non-covertly, yet intentionally, in your team
or organization:
1. Daily standup (Scrum)
2. Test-driven development
3. Measuring success by prototyping
Read More
Visit Capstone's web site to continue this article...
Article Index
Introduction
The Daily Standup
Test-Driven Development
Prototyping
Capstone Can Help
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BI Summit: Determining the ROI of BI
September 17, 2009 @ 5-7PM, Omaha, NE
 Business intelligence and data warehousing promise some of the most
dramatic benefits of any IT initiative a company can undertake. But
it's also one of the most expensive--certainly in terms of dollars,
but also in terms of political capital, cultural change, impact to
existing business processes, etc. Therefore, one of the most
challenging (yet valuable) aspects of a BI initiative is articulating
its benefits and justifying its cost.
Join Capstone Consulting
and Omaha area BI professionals as we discuss practical ways to define
and measure the return on investment (ROI) in business intelligence and
how to sell both projects and entire programs to executive management.
Jeff Block, Business Intelligence Practice Director at Capstone will give a brief presentation and facilitate the discussion.
Refreshments will be served.
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September 2009
