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The Politics of SOA

I was talking to a Chief Technology Officer from a large global bank the other day. I was asking him how his migration to a service-oriented architecture (SOA) was progressing. Now, this person (who will remain nameless) is typically a pretty upbeat guy. He has been working in enterprise software for decades and has a good handle on emerging technologies. Therefore, I was a bit surprised that he didn’t sound like his usually enthusiastic self. While the organization had made significant progress there was a problem. In a word, it was all about politics.

The CTO was discovering that different business units around the company were resistant to change. They looked at his initiative around SOA and hedged. Several IT teams were in full revolt. A few developers were worried about job security. If the organization moves to SOA and starts creating business services from existing applications, will that mean that no more programming will be done? Other sophisticated development teams were not sure that they should use commercial products for Web services. Still others feel close ownership of their own data and are reluctant to turn over control to anyone.

I know that this is not an unusual situation. It is happening all across IT organizations. Simply put, it is about professionals feeling as though they are being forced to change. Change, as we all know is difficult and complicated. However, it is necessary in a world where change is the only certainty. Now, this issue about reluctance to change is not an issue that impacts the IT organization. It is human nature to resist change. But in the case of companies moving to a service-oriented architecture, change is a foundational requirement. There are three principles that I believe are necessary when dealing with the IT organization in order to make sure that politics doesn’t sink SOA.

Educate First

People typically avoid and fight change when they are uninformed. Misinformation spreads fear and mistrust. Management needs to bring together both business and IT professionals so that everyone has the same understanding of the fundamentals of what SOA is and how it benefits the business. This education must be designed to make all participants understand the key role they play in the SOA strategy. But it does not end here. IT professionals need to be trained to feel comfortable with the technical approach and how this actually improves their marketability and their future job security. For example, one smart IT leader made sure that the technology teams were included in early exploratory discussions about SOA strategy. At the same time, programmer development was a top management priority. This allowed many experienced developers with legacy skills to become much more valuable to the organization.

Centralize Leadership for SOA Management

SOA implementations will not work if they are chaotically managed. Many early SOA initiatives were designed by rogue development teams that went overboard and designed Web services by the boatload. While no doubt many were talented programmers, they did not necessarily follow good architectural principles. Many of these early programmers, armed with the idea that they were smarter than the average commercial product developer, often would design their own computing infrastructure. It is not unusual to have a situation like this in any emerging business technology area. Smart developers often want the intellectual stimulation that comes with trying new innovative technologies. However, a line needs to be drawn at the “sandbox” where experimentation is required to ensure that the company is staying on top of the most important software trends and capabilities. In general, management needs to take control of the operational stage of SOA. One CIO, for example, created a centralized committee that controlled any technology purchasing activity related to SOA within the entire company. Another CIO created a SOA council consisting of IT and business management with the authority to make decisions related to architecture, best practices, process design, and business services creation and management. This council, in essence, becomes the linchpin of oversight and SOA governance for the company. It enables the company to have a centralized approach to important issues such as security of corporate data and other vital assets. In the end, however, the primary element that is destined to be the difference between success and failure to overcome political gridlock is leadership. Centralized management of SOA will only work if there is a management team across business and technical leadership that leads. Leadership means providing the vision of success both at an organizational and personal level for team members.

Centralization Supports Federation

It is not unrealistic to assume that individuals may get a little bit upset by centralized control of SOA. After all, too much centralization could potentially inhibit innovation. Ironically this doesn’t have to be the case. With well designed centralized management, it is possible to create a pragmatic federated plan that allows each division, department, or subsidiary some level of autonomy - as long as they follow the rules of centralized SOA management.

But in the end, politics happens. These three principles are a suggested approach to avoid some of the key problems associated with moving to SOA at an operational level. Of course, it is not easy to overcome internal political struggles. Individuals are often not eager to move out of their comfort zone. If knowledge is power, there will be IT professionals who see a movement towards conformity towards standardized approaches and services as a threat. In many situations a developer will point to the fact that SOA is very similar to computing approaches that have been around for decades. They will point out that 20 years ago they were designing subroutine libraries for use in Cobol programs. They will use this knowledge to try to debunk the value of this new platform.

Political discord has been with us within the IT organization since the first computers made their way into the business decades ago. I wish I could say that there is an easy to way to move politics out of the mainstream. There isn’t one easy solution. It requires a continuous adherence to the principles of education, central control of SOA based on strong leadership, and providing the freedom to innovate once controls are in place.


Judith Hurwitz is the President & CEO of Hurwitz & Associates, a strategy consultant and analyst firm focused on the business benefit of enterprise infrastructure and distributed computing technologies including Service Oriented Architectures and collaborative computing. She is co-author of the best selling book, Service Oriented Architectures for Dummies, published by Wiley.

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