developerWorks: Welcome to this developerWorks podcast. I'm your host, Scott Laningham. This is part of a three-part series we're doing on SOA governance. Our guest this time is Sandy Poi, strategy consultant for organizational change with IBM Business Services. She joins us to talk about SOA governance and organizational change management. Sandy, thanks for doing this today.

Poi: Well, I'm very happy to be here.

developerWorks: Now, maybe you could start us off here at the top with something about why SOA governance to SOA implementation. It sounds obvious, but maybe it's not all that obvious.

Poi: I think it really is pretty obvious and I think analysts, as well as IBM, have recognized that. Back in 2005, Gartner stated that Service‑Oriented Architecture governance was not an option for organizations implementing SOA, that it was an imperative. And we agree with that statement because we found out firsthand that clients implementing SOA had to have governance in place because it's a discipline that it provided. It's the very backbone to a SOA implementation.

Without it, organizations can stumble and miss the benefits of the SOA targets. We appreciate that SOA governance is actually focused around decision-making authority and defining and modifying business processes, all those that are associated with adopting Service‑Oriented Architecture. And when we implement SOA, we think that these things have to be included in order to give organizations the ability to implement successfully. SOA governance is that key.

developerWorks: I hear you explain that and I wonder why have SOA implementations in many cases run beyond this logical thinking of the need for governance. How do you explain that why people weren't just understanding this from the get-go?

Poi: I think that if you look back a lot of the SOA implementations to date have really been focused around one application or potentially one process area. And now, as the maturity curve increases and adoption of services increases across organizations, the processes that are impacted by the services now are across multiple functional areas. What this does is increases the complexity of change to those organizations. Therefore, the need for governance and organization change become more critical.

developerWorks: So that's a key challenge then that you're talking about and that's why it's becoming more obvious to people.

Poi: Absolutely.

developerWorks: What about other key implementation challenges then that are associated with SOA and SOA governance? What are some of the others that come to mind?

Poi: Well, the governance framework as we mentioned earlier is around the decision rights, ownership, funding, service identifications, standards, and policies. Those are pretty normal things that help an organization implement significant change. IT strategy is one of those areas where a governance framework has proved very beneficial. In ERP implementation, this has, too. Operating model changes, roles, responsibilities and skills. It's absolutely critical to understand exactly how I'm going to change what I'm doing. Who is doing what when? And what skills are necessary to operate in this environment? And because SOA is an architectural approach, it has a profound organizational effect.

The way that the organizations are run, changes in the business models, changes in the operating model definitely has a profound effect, breaks down the barriers, the internal walls that have been constructed, the "silos" as you've heard them called. That's a definite challenge for implementation of SOA. And because of that architectural approach, it definitely does have an impact in a different way than many other application-driven changes have in the past.

developerWorks: OK — so it sounds like a lot of change. A lot of areas impacted by what you're talking about. And it makes me wonder: Do you keep SOA governance and organizational change in kind of separate pots? Do you look at them differently entirely? Or is there a lot of overlap in your mind?

Poi: From the standpoint of similarities, I think that education skills development, incentives, and measurements that really align to what you're trying to accomplish from a business achievement perspective, changing the roles and the responsibilities in the communication, definitely those are similarities to any other change process that we've seen.

The difference is, again, are around the architectural approach. They change the way companies do business. You have to break down those silos. Governance planning, talent management, ownership, business responsiveness, organization redesign that usually occurs in order to get the agility that you're looking for from SOA, integration into the overall business strategy. Those are some of the key differences and some of the areas of organizational change that we have to play much more aggressive role in addressing for successful SOA implementation. And you can still be successful, but you really want to get the biggest bang for your buck. And that's what the differences are in the organizational change management approach to implementing governance and assisting with the implementation of SOA.

developerWorks: Maybe as a wrap-up here, this obvious question now: How does IBM bring value to clients with SOA implementation? And maybe talk about some of IBM's capabilities in SOA governance and organizational change, if you would.

Poi: In the very beginning, I think we recognized that SOA governance was important, and we started building that framework. But I think the thing that IBM really brings to the table is the proven business, IT and organization change strategy techniques. We combine these to meet with the SOA specific challenges that we've encountered with new business and operating models that are prevalent in implementing SOA, in addressing the cultural and behavioral changes, and the IT infrastructure requirements simultaneously.

Again, using those proven methods and techniques that we have developed we have to make sure though that the organization understands its ability to change. Is it ready to make this type of a change? Is it ready to go on this SOA journey? They want to realize these benefits and in order to do that, the decision-making frameworks have to be in place. They have to have a roadmap that helps them travel down this SOA path.

The methods and models that we help them with are best-practice models we have used with many clients in implementing SOA over the past few years. We try to shift now though the primary focus of SOA from the technology perspective to the organizational change management, addressing those behavior and organizational change gaps that we've seen and at the same time continue to improve and build upon the SOA infrastructure that's been put in place from a technology perspective to move them along that continuum.

developerWorks: Well, Sandy, this has been very helpful. And again, as we've said throughout this three‑part series, for people to read more about this they should go to ibm.com/soa. And they can also go to ibm.com/developerWorks and look in the left nav for the SOA and Web services zone to find out information on all that we've been talking about in this series. I really appreciate your time, Sandy, and for giving us sort of a wrap-up on this three-parter today.

Poi: Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity.

developerWorks: Our guest again was Sandy Poi, a strategy consultant for organizational change with IBM Business Services. Visit ibm.com/soa and ibm.com/developerWorks for more information about Service-Oriented Architecture and SOA governance.

This has been a developerWorks podcast. I'm Scott Laningham. Thanks for listening.

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About the author

Scott Laningham, host of developerWorks podcasts, was previously editor of developerWorks newsletters. Prior to IBM, he was an award-winning reporter and director for news programming featured on Public Radio International, a freelance writer for the American Communications Foundation and CBS Radio, and a songwriter/musician.

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