The SOA~EAF Methodology

The following diagram depicts the  SOA~EAF™ methodology.

The flow of the methodology is represented in the center of the diagram.  It starts with the Corporate Strategy.  From there the process moves to the Business Units’ strategic plans to support the corporate strategy.  This information is used to drive the definition of SOA Initiatives that provide the system capabilities needed to achieve those business plans.  The initiatives in turn define the SOA projects that develop those capabilities culminating with their production implementation.

Some key points about the methodology are:

• While the Corporate Strategy drives the Business Unit Plans that in turn drive the SOA initiatives, SOA Projects are driven by SOA Initiatives but can also influence SOA initiatives.
• Similarly SOA Implementations are driven by SOA Projects but can also influence SOA projects and even SOA Initiatives.

Both of these conditions are due to the fact that the entire SOA value proposition is based on leveragability and reuse.  Therefore, work being performed in an SOA project may not only be benefiting the initiative that funded the work, but may present opportunities for additional capabilities for other initiatives as well.  Existing SOA components already implemented and in production will not only influence the cost and effort of projects that are leveraging and reusing them, but also can drastically reduce the cost and time of delivering entire initiatives.  These will potentially influence future submitted and approved initiatives.  An initiative that provides significant value to the business and does so by leveraging and reusing a significant amount of existing SOA components will be much cheaper and faster to implement than a similar valued initiative where fewer components are reused and more new components are required.

Managing and controlling this process flow is the SOA Architecture Practice.  How they are managing and controlling this process is through the publication and enforcement of the Policies, Procedures and Standards defined in my Methodology documentation.

The Policies that need to be developed to transform the company to the SOA paradigm will be created by and enforced through the governance bodies defined in the Methodology with the top two committees (SOA Business Domain & Enterprise SOA Portfolio Plan) focused on business strategic policies and the remaining bodies focused on technical and operational (tactical) policies.  These policies will provide the criteria that will be the basis for governing:

• How SOA initiatives are structured and evaluated
• How SOA initiatives are approved and funded
• How SOA initiatives are implemented
• How those implementations are monitored and supported

The Policies will also provide the basis for enforcing reuse and leveraging of SOA components.

The Procedures represent the detail activities that make up the center of the methodology pictured above.  These procedures are defined in detail by my Methodology.  These procedures include:

• The Governance process
• The Development Life Cycle
• The Business Application Acquisition evaluation process
• The Capacity Planning and monitoring process
• The Legacy Application modernization and replacement process

In addition to the Policies and Procedures specific Standards need to be identified to support the SOA Architecture.  The governance bodies are also responsible for the identification, adoption and enforcement of these Standards.  These are not just Technology Standards but also Industry Business Standards, Regulatory standards, Legal Standards, etc.