Service-Oriented Architecture Governance for the Services Driven Enterprise

1.20. CREATE THE "RIGHT" ORGANIZATIONAL, CULTURAL, AND BEHAVIORAL MODEL

Along with SOA governance comes the essential yet softer side of SOA: organizational challenges, cultural issues, and the behavioral reinforcement of governance and policies. These are aspects of SOA that are underemphasized because they are difficult to manage, and because it is much easier to buy a vendor software solution than focus on the processes, culture, and behavior that actually make SOA take hold. We will discuss Conway's Law and the implications of organizational structure on enterprise governance and IT/SOA governance.

Consider the following suggestions to help you get your organization and culture right for SOA:

• Understand how your corporate structure inhibits or supports your SOA governance model and enforcement of policies

• Determine how your corporate culture can assist the migration toward SOA or, conversely, how it may not support it

• Latch onto corporate mantras where possible with your SOA initiative

• Determine how to weave SOA goals into organizational and personal incentives

• Use reviews, incentives, rewards, and penalties to achieve a culture of SOA

• Be sure your SOA metrics and scorecards include organizational and individual metrics for success.

Many organizations ignore corporate culture and behavior. SOA, however, demands attention be paid to incentives for appropriate behavior and conformance to the architecture. Be creative, and be bold. Your current IT architecture is a behavioral artifact. ...