The following are a few key points of focus for SOA/web services application development project success:
1. Business sponsorship is critical, but there can be issues depending on organization structure. A decentralized organization provides many opportunities, but it is a challenge how to define ‘the business’. Business driven could be from an ‘enterprise’ perspective, but if the organization is too big, it might be better to drive from a business unit perspective just to get something done. This could serve as a template for the enterprise.
2. Process alignment is good and necessary, but there is nothing wrong with IT seeking out cost savings. But the opportunity for identifying logical business services provides the potential for strategic initiatives, not just cost-saving.
3. Funding and architecture processes potentially work together. Some money at a central level is necessary. There is a need for an SOA infrastructure: an enterprise service bus, or ESB makes sense, as does creating a basic core of common services that can encourage and facilitate the use of services among application builders.
The efforts of the central architecture and funding mechanisms should be geared to setting up infrastructure that encourages, by making it easier and more economical, use of services instead of other means. This would be a more ‘social engineering’ approach, as opposed to a ‘governing’ or ‘forcing’ approach.
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