Service-Oriented Architecture Governance for the Services Driven Enterprise

1.5. DO NOT CONFUSE GOVERNANCE WITH MANAGEMENT

Our definition of governance is critical to bear in mind as you begin developing your SOA governance model. Governance is often confused with management. In one sense, both are management activities. Governance provides management and oversight for critical activities or decisions where stakeholder representation is an imperative. Management is about execution of all business or organizational activities once the decision is made. Management activities usually do not require external stakeholder involvement or representation, whereas governance activities nearly always have stakeholder interests across multiple domains or constituencies involved. Both are related, and both are necessary in an SOA governance model. However, governance is essential where critical decisions require stakeholder involvement, and where those decisions have strategic or serious impact on business, IT or process performance. Do not confuse management processes with governance processes.

Governance is also focused on more critical aspects of the business, where management is focused on all aspects of the business, some of which may be the focus of governance oversight. One of the real challenges in SOA governance is determining what must be governed, and how, versus what must be managed as parts of normal IT or business management. In this book, we will separate out the domain of management from the domain of governance. When in doubt, ask if something is ...