If you ask me this is a good trend. While SOA is attractive as the hot new technology, or perhaps the reinvention of existing technology, most enterprise architects view SOA as a key strategic initiative, and aren't willing to risk failure. This is evident in the SOA's slow uptake, now accelerating, as larger organization do some advanced planning as well as get a bit smarter in dealing with the notion of SOA, keeping in mind that it's really a journey not a destination.

Finding an approach isn't that easy, however. There certainly is a great deal written on the topic by some very smart people, but the right approach for your particular organization may be a bit different from the generalized approaches/methodologies you see around today. In other words, you'll be doing some planning to create the plan.

What this trend will result in, just you wait and see, is a focus on design and planning tools more than implementation technology. Truth be told, there aren't many design and planning tools out there for SOA, and the ones on the market aren't impressive at all. Hopefully, we'll see some creative and well-funded start-ups in this space soon. Categories of planning tools should include:

Modeling and implementation. Holistic modeling of the SOA and all of its working parts.

Security design and implementation. The ability to figure out how you're going to secure and govern your SOA.

Semantic understanding and metadata modeling. The ability to identify all application semantics and define a common metadata model.

Service design and implementation. The ability design services properly, implement them, and track them.

Orchestration and process modeling. The ability to model processes and implement them directly from the model.