The SOA knowledge gap

The common business structures that enable large corporations to function effectively can actually inhibit the development of an effective service-oriented architecture (SOA). Most enterprise employees outside of IT work for a team, in a department, in a division or some similar hierarchical structure. This pattern of organization has effectively served large corporations, governments, and militaries for a long time. Understandably, people in such organizational structures see the world through the context of their position in this hierarchy. But the organizational structure can present challenges for SOA analysis when the IT solution requires input from representatives in all parts of the business.

Over the years, the software world has matured to the point where analysis and design are quite refined processes. Most people in the IT world are by now quite familiar with the main techniques used for gathering business requirements and developing system architectures. The role of Subject Matter Expert (SME, sometimes called a Domain Expert) is now commonplace on software development projects. This has served well for building line of business systems-software silos, if you will-that traditionally served the business unit for which they are built. Tapping directly into the knowledge of a business expert allows the development team to produce a solution that closely resembles what the business unit actually needs. This process is by no means simple, but it is at least common and well understood.

A unique SOA challenge is its need to bring together SMEs from across the enterprise. SOA builds a new collective knowledge base, representing how the business operates at a level above the individual business lines. This poses several distinct problems for the SOA analysis process.

Representatives from every line of business need to be involved in analyzing the SOA's needs and capabilities. If each business unit has its own IT staff, it may need to participate as well.

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