There are three distinct types of projects that IT within large enterprises must support in an SOA initiative: application development, business solution development, and services development. Each requires project managers with different skills and perspectives. Yet the roles of the central IT groups, Integration Competency Centers (ICCs), enterprise architecture group, program management office and the senior-level steering committee are the same for all projects. The differences arise in how implementation and second-tier support are handled.

On application development projects, the application development groups are responsible for implementation and second-tier support while representatives of the business units consult and support in the area of requirements and processes, and provide other business-specific subject matter expertise during the course of the project.

ICC and Integration Project Staffing:

The size of an ICC will depend on its role and the organizational model. Smaller centers tend to take a mentoring and coaching role, while larger centers get actively involved in the development process. The typical number of full-time employees is 5 to 7, but can reach 150 or higher in some cases. A recent Gartner report saying that 30-50% of the total cost of a project is spent on integration implies that a similar percentage of the project's manhours should be spent working on integration-the majority in development teams across the organization and a smaller percentage in the ICC itself.

SOA Funding

When it comes to that most important of topics, budgeting, it's worth noting that significant SOA funding is typically not done in advance of business projects. Instead, enterprise-level "seed money" is a common practice. Implementation is paid for by a project-level budget, central budget, or some combination of the two.

A combined funding model recognizes both long-term value of SOA and the need to prevent over-investing in architecture by staying focused on capabilities with immediate real-world application and value. Even a minimal degree of central funding for architecture direction can result in progress toward SOA as some IT shops will not propose to the business solutions not based on SOA.

The bottom line is that the funding model should enable clear and steady progress toward the SOA vision, regardless of degree of central funding available.

(This article is excerpted from a white paper, the full text of which can be found here.)