Germany has developed the typical love-hate relationship with SOA that we usually develop towards new (business) trends coming from the U.S. There are a variety of reasons for it. First and foremost, there is the slightly different cultural and educational approach. In the U.S., the minute a new idea has been spoken, people abandon the ship of the old idea and flock towards to new way of doing things. German students, on the other hand, like others in Europe, are trained to prove a concept by disproving the hypothesis. Thus, our natural instinct to any new idea is "it won't work" and we need to try to prove that. Only when that proof fails will be start to believe that the new thing may be a good idea.

Then there is a slight resentment, as we have this suspicion that what's coming our way might be something old that we are already doing (or have done before), just in new packaging. And then there is a bit of envy: how could it be that others came up with this again? Can it be good if we missed it ourselves? Last, but not least, service-oriented is something for which our country is not necessarily famous. ;--)

So how can we overcome the slight resentment and learn to embrace the idea behind SOA, understand different steps and stages towards it, and see if it might be useful for us? The answers might be in thinking about some steps in the process of our evolution when we learned to fly.

1) First you need a vision, something that makes you believe that flying the SOA route would be a great thing to do, makes you achieve things faster, reach more places (markets), and move information faster from Point A to Point B. In some cases, if you already feel like you have a train, boats, and a few fast cars at hand, the SOA flight story might not be that compelling. If it makes you do things just a little better, it will be difficult to paint a compelling picture to get executive buy in.

So don't ask yourself how much faster something could be developed with SOA. Ask yourself how you could leave the competition in the dust, and then think about why you are not doing it today, and whether SOA could help you to achieve this.

2) Then you need a team and a plan. If you just jump from the first hill and die, your (SOA) flight will be over quickly. So you need to form a team and document progress. And planning and proper assessment of your assets is crucial if you really want to reuse. Just because you have a car, a lawn mower, and an air conditioner does not mean that you now have all the material and parts to reuse to build a plane.

Open up to the idea that if you want to make your vision come true, you will have some parts missing, and it might be well worth it to pay for it and some advice. When you buy extra parts to mix them with the mower and the car, be prepared to have parts left over at the end and to get hands your hands dirty.

And be careful with advice as well: sometimes it's good not to know the limitations if you really want to fulfill your vision and want to fly (think of the bumble-bee).

3) Thirdly, think of it as real teamwork. Not as in the German phrase "Toll Ein Anderer Macht's" (great, somebody else is doing it), but in the spirit that people and pieces really need to work together, and that in doing so they will change large pieces of the company. Yes, one guy can fly, but if you really want to move things, you will need a big plane and many people will need to work together to make it happen.

I've heard many practitioners say that SOA is 70% change management and 30% technology. Then get the right technology so you don't have to spend much time on it, as the time will be needed for the change management tasks. The next book you might want to read about SOA should not be about SOA at all, but rather something along the lines of The Innovator's Dilemma or Winning Through Innovation.

Because in the end, who cares about your service-oriented architecture? Your customers certainly do not. They might want a (customer) service-oriented company. If SOA gets you closer toward this, go for it. But don't forget what you are really trying to achieve. And a (customer) service-oriented company, well that's a vision we Germans could warm up to. Such a company would certainly make a difference.

Email : dciomek@it-consulting.net