Service Oriented Architecture Field Guide for Executives

9.5. SUMMARY

As the old saying goes: "Less is more." With SOA, as with so many things in business and in life, it is important that it is applied judiciously. Looking to children, we learn the importance of not overapply-ing successful strategies and the value of getting just the right amount of something. One of the key enablers of this is an effective governance team that establishes a clear methodology and set of guidelines regarding SOA adoption. One viable approach is the Selective SOA methodology outlined in this chapter. Regardless of what methodology is utilized, the organization must strike the right balance between using SOA to try to solve everything and using it only to take advantage of low-hanging fruit. So how does an organization know what the right balance looks like? For most enterprises it takes a lot of trial and error ... just like Goldilocks.