Charles Betz
Research Director

Author Insights
Blog
Introducing The Forrester Asset Taxonomy
The definition of “asset” has broadened well beyond traditional financial boundaries in the earliest days of IT asset management. Technology stakeholders are often confused over what constitutes an asset, and the technologies to enable enterprise asset management frequently add to this confusion.
Blog
DevOps Theme Team: 2022 In Review And Looking Ahead To 2023
Happy holidays from the DevOps theme team! Our merry band of Forrester analysts covering enterprise architecture, infrastructure, application development, application security, and technology strategy meets periodically to share research, debate trends, and dive into breaking news. What are a few of the trends and themes that have caught our attention this year? Let’s dive in […]
Blog
Platform Product Management Versus Platform Engineering
Note: I have heard some concerns I’m “throwing I&O under the bus” here. That’s not the intent. I&O’s struggles stem from deliberate operating model choices by senior leaders. The individual contributors have always worked hard in difficult circumstances. I truly believe that proper product management will benefit them. I just got back from the DevOps […]
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The Forrester Enterprise Architecture Award Finalists For North America
Learn how the three finalists for Forrester’s Enterprise Architecture Award for North America drive their EA strategy and its impacts.
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Announcing The Forrester Enterprise Architecture Award Semifinalists For North America
Find out which firms have made the cut and what the next steps are in naming the finalists.
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DevOps 2030: People, Practices, And Platforms
When we imagine the future of DevOps, we see three primary vectors of evolution: people, practices, and platforms.
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VMware Customers: Get Ready For Broadcom Disruption
Late Sunday evening, Bloomberg reported rumors of advanced Broadcom talks to acquire VMware, which has since been confirmed this morning. In light of Broadcom’s investment activities in the past few years, this news is unsurprising. It made a string of massively expensive enterprise software company acquisitions: Brocade Communications Systems in 2016 ($5.9 billion), CA Technologies […]
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How EA Teams Can Deliver True Business Value
There are few capabilities in modern technology more conflicted than enterprise architecture (EA, or often just “architecture.”) Predictions of EA’s demise are common. Notable influencers in digital-native firms such as Amazon VP Adrian Cockcroft believe that architects per se aren’t needed, because “that’s what managers do.” Stories abound of EA organizations being disbanded because they […]
Blog
Observations On The Atlassian Outage
What Is Going On? One of our less pleasant responsibilities here at Forrester is commenting on serious business, security, or technical failures in the digital and IT industry. Due to its duration and the implications for a subset of the user base, the current Atlassian outage rises to that level. Atlassian is staking its future […]
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Presenting The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Service Management, Q4 2021
In 2017, Forrester expanded upon the IT service management market (ITSM) to establish enterprise service management (ESM) as a chosen area of coverage, continuing this research with a 2019 Forrester Wave™ evaluation. Now, we are pleased to announce The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Service Management, Q4 2021. In 2018, ITSM vendors were still completing the transition […]
Blog
What’s In A Name? “Product” Versus “Service”
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” — William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2 One conversation I’ve found myself in over the past 20 years is the debate over IT portfolio terminology: Application Service Product Platform Why is this important? Because organizations use […]
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When Worlds Collide: IT & Product Management
Learn how the convergence of traditional IT practices with the discipline of product management can benefit your IT organization.
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Product Teams: The New Iron Triangle
The concept of an “iron triangle” is an old one. In project management, it’s the trade-offs between cost, schedule, and scope. “Pick any two” is a common rule of thumb — that is, you can optimize for two but not three. One variation on the triangle is cost, schedule, and quality (scope is replaced by […]
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Shared Services, Meet Product Management
If you want to be unpopular with an agile or DevOps team, tell them, “You need to use the shared service.” Shared services have a well-deserved reputation for bureaucracy, one-size-fits-all standards, long lead times, and high transaction costs. Shared services per se are not the problem. Amazon is a public, shared service, and it’s well […]
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Expertise And The Shared Services Problem: A Conversation With Don Reinertsen
One of the biggest hurdles for DevOps is meeting the need for both specialists and generalists. Principal Analyst Charles Betz talks with DevOps expert Don Reinertsen about striking the right balance.
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Product Centricity Is Coming To Your Organization
I talk to many Forrester customers every week who are transforming: digital, agile, DevOps, or some mix of the three. One common theme is an interest in product team organization. This has been a hot topic for some time, and interest still seems to be increasing. To explain what a product team is, I use […]
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The New Change Management: Automated And Decentralized
Principal analyst Charles Betz provides key recommendations for modernizing IT change management in the wake of agile transformation.
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COVID Drives M&A Activity In DevOps And IT Management
Learn how the pandemic's increased uncertainty and volatility has produced some attractive M&A opportunities in DevOps and IT Management.
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The New Operating Model Is Upon Us
Challenging times call for creative responses and quick pivots. Learn how some organizations are rethinking innovation to thrive.
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The DevOps Hypothesis Is Sound — Introducing The Q4 2020 Modern Technology Operations Survey
This year, I led my first custom survey research for Forrester, the Q4 2020 Modern Technology Operations Survey. We selected a random panel of 268 digital and IT professionals with day-to-day responsibility for operating digital systems. (We did not rule out developers, as long as they also had runtime responsibilities). We also looked for folks […]
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