SOA’s People Problem by Bob Rhubart
- by JuergenKress
Are reluctant passengers slowing down your SOA train? Based
on my conversations with various experts in service-oriented
architecture (SOA), the consensus is that SOA tools and technology have
achieved a high level of maturity. Some even use the term industrialization
to describe the current state of SOA. Given that scenario, one might
assume that SOA has been wildly successful for every organization that
has adopted its principles.
Obviously SOA could not have achieved
its current level of maturity and industrialization without having
reached a tipping point in the volume of success stories to drive
continued adoption. But some organizations continue to struggle with
SOA. The problem, according to some experts, has little to do with tools
or technologies.
“One of the greatest challenges to implementing
SOA has nothing to do with the intrinsic complexity behind a SOA
technology platform,” says Oracle ACE Luis Augusto Weir, senior Oracle
solution director at HCL AXON. “The real difficulty lies in dealing with
people and processes from different parts of the business and aligning
them to deliver enterprisewide solutions.”
What can an
organization do to meet that challenge? “Staff the right people,” says
Weir. “For example, the role of a SOA architect should be as much about
integrating people as it is about integrating systems. Dealing with
people from different departments, backgrounds, and agendas is a huge
challenge. The SOA architect role requires someone that not only has a
sound architectural and technological background but also has charisma
and human skills, and can communicate equally well to the business and
technical teams.”
The SOA architect’s communication skills are
instrumental in establishing service orientation as the guiding
principle across the organization. “A consistent architecture comprising
both business services and IT services can comprehensively redefine the
role of IT at the process level,” says Danilo Schmiedel, solution
architect at Opitz Consulting. That helps to shift the focus from siloes
to services and get SOA on track.
To that end, Oracle ACE
Director Lonneke Dikmans, a managing partner at Vennster, stresses the
importance of replacing individual, uncoordinated projects with a
focused program that promotes communication, cooperation, and service
reuse. “Having support among lead developers and architects helps, as
does having sponsors that see the business case and understand the
strategic value,” she says. Read the complete article here.
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