Thinking SOA - A Roadmap to Success

The adoption of a Service Oriented Architecture is always a tricky business for an enterprise, mainly because by nature it confronts the organization with a number of high-risk / high-reward scenarios.

As SOA consultants, one of our first challenges when involved in this kind of project would be to contribute in the definition of an effective roadmap, one that considers as many elements as possible in the organizational landscape.  This activity should be very helpful for involving critical participants, standardizing the development processes and preventing risks / intangibles.

Experience has shown us that when talking about SOA, there is no such thing as a smooth path to success. Nevertheless, an intelligent and methodical approach will always have more upside than the roll-the-dice dynamics which many companies have endured in the last few years.

Regarding these matters, here's a checklist of steps we may consider when adopting SOA:

1. Conducting a Preliminary Assessment
2. Identifying Pilot Project Candidates
3. Selecting a Pilot Project
4. Organizing SOA Briefings Throughout the Organization
5. Envisioning the SOA Model
6. Kickstarting the Model
7. Governing the Model 

Conducting a thorough preliminary assessment, as well as identifying a factible pilot project, are tasks of the utmost importance to the critical decision making that will come thereafter. The SOA Briefings should also be very relevant, since spreading the knowledge will surely encourage collaboration and improve communication.

As important as patience can be along the early steps of a SOA Adoption, once the model and the pilot are both ready, we must be audacious enough to give our project the necessary push to go live ASAP. A tentative approach in this case, can have a very negative impact on the way the project and the SOA team are perceived by the stakeholders and sponsors.

Why do we left governance at the bottom of the list if it's so important?. Because we ought to have something to govern first!, we cannot attempt to run before we learn to walk.

Now we have a solid infrastructure and a working model, a flagship project, involvment of key members of the organization and a long term vision. With the challenges ahead of us, a lot of things can still go wrong; however, everything should be fine eventually as long as we remain on the right track.