If any of the e-mails I’ve been receiving are an indication, I think that the productivity angle of SOA, and just getting a project going, are going to be the hot topics.

I think we’ve analyzed to death the notion of a SOA, debated topics such as ESB, swore on Web services standards, and designated some people in the organization as SOA Gods, now it’s time to get to work. Who’s with me?

So, the focus should be on first or second steps, including getting ones house in order, preparing for the layer of new stuff. This includes a semantic understand of your enterprise universe, and an accounting for the services already there.

For most enterprises, this is a year long effort, and a lot of busy work. Many will be tempted to jump directly to the technology analysis phase, but will find that doing so too early in the process will kill you before you get the SOA project out of the gate.

Moreover, we need to keep in mind that SOA is a journey, not a project. So, you have to think holistically, not in the terms of a single project life cycle.

That said, let’s get started.