SOA is ultimately a big initiative, and we lean on our enterprise architects and IT staffs to make it happen.
How do these overworked folks do it? As Michael Hugos so eloquently put it in a recent ComputerWorld piece, architects and their IT colleagues are charged with balancing "multiyear infrastructure development work with short, 30-to-90-day projects that deliver business application systems as business needs evolve. And do it so that even as you’re implementing the IT infrastructure, you’re delivering new applications that use this infrastructure..."
"You might think that you might as well try to change the tires on a race car while it’s still moving. How can you build systems that use a new IT infrastructure until that infrastructure is in place?"
This is where maintaining common sets of standardized enterprise components come into place, Michael writes. He recommends using pre-defined, iterative system-development techniques under the guidance of the enterprise architecture standards. "Combine selected infrastructure components as needed with small chunks of custom code to create new systems. In this way, systems can be delivered and enhanced quickly. What keeps them from becoming an unmaintainable mess is that the systems are all created from the same set of components. That means that the IT groups trained in using this enterprise architecture can maintain and enhance any system built from those components."
Chunking. I like that concept. I've heard management guru Tom Peters talk about chunking, in which seemingly complex and overwhelming projects are broken down into manageable... well, chunks. Tom credits chunking with helping successful companies push through even the most complex projects.
Michael applies this thinking to enterprise architecture: "A good systems architect also understands that, when done right, these short application-development projects actually drive much of the longer-term rollout of the new IT infrastructure. Most infrastructure components — whether servers, operating systems, databases, middleware, Web portals, SOA tools, packaged software or programming languages — can be rolled out in phases that build upon one another."
This is a good strategy to keep in mind for 2008. EbizQ colleague Brenda Michelson has been exploring scenarios for SOA in the event of a rocky economy, and I believe one such effect will be IT professionals and architects being asked to do more with less -- meaning few additional staff or consultants will be brought aboard to help with new projects.
Heck, even if the economy keeps growing through 2008, IT folks will still get asked to do more and more with less and less. Enterprise standards and components hold the key to being able to do much more with less.
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