Service-Oriented Architecture Governance for the Services Driven Enterprise

1.24. RIGHT-SIZED SOA GOVERNANCE: HOW MUCH GOVERNANCE DO WE NEED?

Many organizations are anxious about governance, especially when it is construed as adding layers of overhead and interfering in decision making processes that are not broken. Weill and Ross observe that all organizations have some form of governance or IT governance. Whether the current governance is explicit or effective is a completely separate inquiry. While SOA governance does have many moving parts and requires integrating many perspectives and stakeholders in SOA decisions, SOA governance does not have to add tremendous complexity. Yet SOA governance will add new processes, extend current IT governance processes, and require more attention be paid to SOA-centric activities.

In order to keep things in perspective, we break out Henry David Thoreau's famous quote: "That government is best which governs least." SOA governance is best implemented a little at a time, as much as is needed to control key processes and decisions, and by implementing as much as necessary to ensure SOA success. Any amount of SOA governance is more than most organizations want, regardless of the nature of it. That said, SOA governance is essential and therefore you must get it right. Enough to govern critical SOA governance requirements, and yet not so much that innovation and progress is stifled. A better SOA governance quote might be as follows:

That governance is best that governs best with the least.

You must always ask yourself ...