Service Oriented Architecture Field Guide for Executives

12.3. EVALUATING SOA

The first three steps involve the investigation of SOA's applicability to the enterprise as depicted in Exhibit 12.1. What are the current problems and goals of the organization? How might SOA be brought to bear to help address these issues? If the enterprise does move to become service oriented, what aspects of the business represent strong candidates?

Figure 12.1. The Six-Step SOA Evaluation and Adoption Plan guides teams through a pragmatic examination of SOA and its feasibility for a given business

Step 1: Identify the Current Business Drivers

Start by listing the pain points for the organization. The scope of the effort will dictate whether you look at a single business unit or the entire enterprise. The following questions can help to get this process started:

• Where does the group experience inefficiencies?

• Where are cost overruns occurring?

• Have there been recent project failures or significant setbacks? What were the root causes?

• Is the organization meeting all of its business benchmarks? If not, where is it coming short?

• Are the organization's information systems hitting their performance targets? If not, where is the gap?

After exploring the pain points for the group, you will flip your focus and think in terms of growth opportunities. Again, the scope of the effort could be a single business unit or the entire enterprise. The following questions can ...