SOA is like a financial market part II

Glen Daniels added a good comment on one of my last posts.  Glen's point was that in a financial market everyone tries to achieve their own goals, but it's different in an enterprise - an enterprise is more like a sports team, with everyone working towards a common goal.

Sorry, Glen.  I can't agree. The majority of people care most about closest to them (i.e. their health and welfare, etc.).  And, sometimes this aligns with their organization (or team) - just ask any Red Sox fan whether Manny Ramirez was always acting in the best interest of the team and you'll see this is true.

Here's a business example that's more relevant: SOA goals are often long term goals.  And these can often conflict with short-term goals of getting a project delivered quickly.  It might be in the best interest of the organization to follow the "SOA route" and delay project delivery - but the IT team would risk being fired if they did that.  So the majority of IT teams focus on the short term goals.

The way I look at it, your assumption out of the door should be that no one is aligned with your SOA goals (just like in a financial market you're acting like the market regulator).  Yes, this is the paranoid approach: they are out to get you.  Even if only 20% of them are out to get you (and the other 80% are with you) the problem is you usually don't know which 20% to worry about!

So, what does this mean?  You should always focus on ensuring the goals of your SOA are never in conflict with other goals that people might have (e.g. short term project delivery deadlines).

OA