It's a timely topic given all the interest lately in measuring the value of SOA. After all, success or failure in a given organization is utterly dependent on adoption - whether by stealth of by fiat. So timely, that I ran across an interesting poll around SOA Governance in LinkedIn Groups that I'm reposting with the link:

Which of the following elements essential for successful SOA?

• a) Service Management and Governance


• b) SOA Reference Architecture


• c) SOA Maturity Model


• d) Service Registry

Be a part of our survey: http://bit.ly/2H8W1X

The real answer, of course, is all of the above, and none of the above. SOA is not about SOA governance, regardless of what vendors in that space will have you believe. Governance is just a management approach to ensure that SOA investments to become too complex. SOA is a disciplined approach to building technology capabilities, so while the options given in the poll are useful, they are not a necessity. Even with all of the technical capabilities in place, SOA adoption may fail (and has in several instances). Without modification to the business, organizational and risk mitigation capabilities (depending on Business Operating Model) technology itself is a money pit. In case of SOA, or any other large scale change program, success is unlikely through 'if you build it they will come' approach. Chances are, if you build it, and the organization is not ready for it, nobody will show up to your SOA party.

AAB