"Data" Dangers in SOA

Dennis Howlett has an interesting post on the pervasive nature of Excel errors.

The spreadsheet is the original killer app. It allows users to easily capture and automate small decision models for their contexts. Unfortunately, its ease of use means that errors can balloon into catastrophe before they are caught.

To the degree that SOA and Web 2.0 enable the same kind of user-governed modeling, the same risk emerges...but on a much larger scale since these models will by definition exist within a much larger modeling ecosystem (much of it "in the cloud") that is constantly churning.

In such an environment, risk avoidance (the typical "build quality in" approach to SW) may not be feasible. Ongoing, robust, and agile risk management (i.e., defining risks, accepting risks, tracking risks, mitigating risks, etc.) may be the only way to obtain the promised agility and adaptability.