Eight Characteristics for SOA Implementation

Mike Kavis at CIO.com recently compiled a list of the behaviors that can contribute to the efficient implementation of SOA.

-Strong Executive Level Sponsorship and SOA Evangelist
Someone in your company with power should be behind the project. This drive change throughout the organization and also helps work through any roadblocks that may arise during implementation.
-Define Completeness of Work within Services The business needs to understand why SOA is important to their needs. Fina a way to demonstrate that it's going to be an asset and value in the future
-Established a Center of Excellence (CoE) Appoint someone who will be in charge of the SOA initiative. Have controls in place to define to show the SOA results.
-Start With a Well-defined Business Process and Scale Up Start with one strong business process your company has in place then work up. And have your vision in place so you can reach that in the future.
-Define Completeness of Work within Services Put thought into which services are key business drivers. Only choose those businesses services that add value to the company.
-Quality Assurance is Key Be sure to include performance, security and governance testing in your plans.
-ROI Is Difficult to Achieve Initially and Is Realized Over Time Value is maximized with architecture over time. ROI will begin to develop and spread as the projects gain maturity.
-Deliver Substantial Business Value

Return on Investment or Return on Information?

Anton Venter’s latest post on the IT Knowledge Exchange argues that the real ROI of EA comes from information and its use. Anton makes another great point that documentation of architecture makes finding information easier and readily available. It also becomes easier to provide outsourcers info on the architecture should they need it to support an organization’s applications. What do you think is the real ROI of enterprise architecture?