Taking the Lead on Organization and Governance
Amid these perceived challenges, there are actions CIOs can take to improve their odds of success. It comes down to adopting the following best practices:

• Get personally involved, early. The “benevolent dictator” approach can be employed judiciously to catalyze change and bring decisions on new rules, roles and responsibilities to a clear conclusion. The reality in most organizations is that IT teams won’t work out those critical success factors among themselves, as the “turf” issues to be addressed are beyond the responsibility of the individuals developing the new processes. CIOs who directly insert themselves in these decisions early in the process can compress the time required to make some key decisions, accelerating their organization’s SOA adoption.
• Prioritize the SOA benefits. As SOA has moved into the mainstream of IT strategy, the potential benefits have been hyped beyond what’s realistically possible. Forcing the IT leadership team to prioritize the benefits the enterprise and the divisions will achieve by adopting an SOA approach is a foundational exercise that many find beneficial.
• Establish the boundaries. Foundational organization and architecture guidelines need to be debated and agreed upon at the top. The implications of simple guidelines such as “data is owned by the enterprise” are far-reaching, and set the boundaries that smaller sub-teams can address in detail.
• Develop a conceptual SOA organization. The organizational models surrounding shared development approaches are finite, and while the titles may be updated for SOA, many CIOs will recognize the prescribed roles. Developing and privately syndicating “straw” organizational models has proven to be an effective way to surface the issues among the leadership team with minimal territorial behavior, which can then be modified if real-world trade-offs need to be considered.
• Address four core processes first. Not all software development processes need to be addressed immediately, and in fact, addressing too much too early can be detrimental to success. Successful organizations have begun to address the following four core processes, leaving the rest of the software development lifecycle processes for later in their SOA maturity:
  1. SOA architectural management. A structured process for any proposed changes to be reviewed and implemented in the enterprise SOA reference architecture.
  2. SOA project management. As part of the existing project investment decision process, organizations are adding an SOA process determining a project’s alignment with the SOA road map in order to emphasize IT projects best leveraging existing services or with the best potential of creating new services with a high degree of reuse.
  3. SOA alignment/ As an adjunct to existing SDLC processes, companies are adding formal design and architectural reviews at key control points in order to ensure alignment with key SOA architectural guidelines and business objectives.
  4. SOA infrastructure management. Version control for existing published services and new services that will be introduced.
• Ease culture shock. Many companies have adopted a project-by-project approach to implementing SOA, realizing benefits as they go. These companies have found that implementing effective SOA O&G is a similar process. While the full implementation of the new SOA processes may require significant changes, implementing these changes all at once can overwhelm any benefits that may be realized from initial SOA projects. An effective approach to rollout is to let the number of services actually deployed in production set the pace, allowing the O&G changes to be implemented in phases. Early in the process, “virtual” roles and committees can be an effective way to get started, all of which can be introduced without major organizational change.
• Put some bite in the process. “Because SOA governance is key, you’ll want to establish an oversight/review committee with real teeth,” AHL’s McCoy says. “Make this a priority, not an afterthought.” Early in the process, the committee may be used primarily for facilitating communication, but over time the “teeth” of the committee need to be felt, as the core processes begin to be implemented, and adherence needs to be enforced.
• Use the right kind of external help. Broad organizational change efforts can equal a “license to consult” for many vendors, and cause any budget-conscious CIO to avoid using outside assistance. But external resources, unburdened by organizational politics, can be uniquely useful for building consensus on priorities, leveraging examples from the industry, defining new roles and responsibilities, and building an O&G implementation plan. You can achieve these critical steps using as few as two to three external advisers, provided the right internal executive team gets directly engaged from the beginning. SOA organization and governance doesn’t require the army of consultants that some would prescribe.