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initiative. SOA governance is mission critical to guide and manage all the
‘‘moving parts’’ of an SOA strategy. An enterprise SOA governance model
must be informed by an actionable SOA strategy, since SOA governance
helps enable the realization of your SOA strategy.
In our experience, most organizations have skipped the definition of a
reasonable SOA strategy, and until recently the same organizations have by-
passed developing an enterprise approach to SOA governance. However, as
interest in governance intensifies, this should spur a concomitant interest in
SOA strategy development as well. To set the stage for the remainder of the
book, let’s explore the rise of governance as a discipline, the industry and
business drivers for governance, and then translate that into the SOA-
specific instantiations of governance.
INTRODUCTION TO GOVERNANCE
SOA governance, information technology (IT) governance, and corporate
governance are currently hot industry buzzwords. But what is SOA gover-
nance really? What is governance in the general sense? Governance is a sim-
ple concept to understand, yet it is made complex by vendors, management
consultants, and opportunists who see the increasing emphasis on gover-
nance as a chance to augment or enhance their power base in an organiza-
tion. However, governance, be it IT, SOA, or corporate, does not have to be
that complicated.
Governance is the process of making correct and appropriate decisions
on behalf of the stakeholders of those decisions or choices. In its corporate
application, governance is the process of ensuring the best interests of a
company’s or organization’s stakeholders are met through all corporate de-
cisions, from strategy through execution. In its IT application, governance
focuses on appropriate oversight and stakeholder representation for IT
spending and overall IT management.
Corporate governance has become critically important as a result of
corporate accounting scandals, stock option backdating and related cor-
porate mismanagement episodes. Corporate governance is essential to
apply oversight and balanced stakeholder representation for all corporate
decisions relating to hiring and retaining key executives, executive com-
pensation, strategic direction and execution. Corporate governance in
publicly traded companies is the process by which firms are managed to
ensure stakeholder interests are met by corporate decisions. Stakeholders
include shareholders, employees, management, and even customers. The
corporate governance process is normally achieved by a board of direc-
tors, who are either appointed or elected to provide objective, balanced
Introduction to Governance 5