The Next Leap in Productivity: What Top Managers Really Need to Know about Information Technology

5.3. To Gain Control You Must Give Up Control

We said that markets are conversations, and that you are going to be having conversations with customers, suppliers, partners, service providers, regulatory agencies, and even competitors using the interfaces defined in your SOA.

We have further said that you are not going to have control over these external entities. Here is the really fun part: you are going to have to give them control over you! Well, not quite. But you are going to have to open up your processes so that everybody who legitimately consumes a service that you are offering has a way to participate in the evolution of that service over time.

In other words, you are not going to be able to get away with saying, "Here's how our service works." You are also going to have to say, "Here's how our service works and here's how you can help us improve it." This is called SOA governance, and making sure it is done right is going to become your CIO's most important job.

To summarize what I have told you so far:

• You have no choice but to move to SOA.

• You will be glad you did, because when you do it right, it will make your enterprise fabulously successful.

And all that you are going to have to do to move to SOA is to change your IT philosophy, your software development methodology, and your corporate culture.

And I haven't even told you what SOA is yet.