Comments on: SOA is necessary for agility but not sufficient http://jtonedm.com/2008/12/08/soa-is-necessary-for-agility-but-not-sufficient/ James Taylor on Everything Decision Management Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:08:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Fred Cummins http://jtonedm.com/2008/12/08/soa-is-necessary-for-agility-but-not-sufficient/comment-page-1/#comment-11675 Fred Cummins Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:19:21 +0000 http://jtonedm.com/?p=749#comment-11675 James, I agree that simply applying software measurement techniques is not an adequate measure of agility.  From my perspective, SOA is a business architecture that represents not only the application of technology, but a fundamental change in the design of the business.  This is a paradigm shift for business people. My proposal is that the impact of a change, hypothetical or otherwise, be assessed in terms of the impact on service units (or in the absence of SOA, the business operations), the business activities that are responsible for managing the business capabilities to provide services.  These changes would include process, policy, responsbility, personnel, and decision making as well as applications of technology.  So the measures are essentially measures of the cost (and time) to implement change.  It's not an absolute measure, but it provides executive management with a basis for considering risk in their ability (or inability) to change in response to changing business circumstances. Fred James,
I agree that simply applying software measurement techniques is not an adequate measure of agility.  From my perspective, SOA is a business architecture that represents not only the application of technology, but a fundamental change in the design of the business.  This is a paradigm shift for business people.

My proposal is that the impact of a change, hypothetical or otherwise, be assessed in terms of the impact on service units (or in the absence of SOA, the business operations), the business activities that are responsible for managing the business capabilities to provide services.  These changes would include process, policy, responsbility, personnel, and decision making as well as applications of technology. 

So the measures are essentially measures of the cost (and time) to implement change.  It’s not an absolute measure, but it provides executive management with a basis for considering risk in their ability (or inability) to change in response to changing business circumstances.

Fred

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