Techno-SOA = Failure

In the latest review of SOA successes and failures, Joe McKendrick discusses a Burton Group finding that techno-centric SOA projects are at best a collection of JBOWS that fail to create new value.

SOA successes focused on the business aspects (People, Processes, and Organizations), especially where a culture shift was required, and ensured that robust governance was part of the transformation....technology as a tool...a concept to conjure with....

Yet more evidence that perhaps we should say Service "Orienting" Architectures to emphasize that the shift to SOA is more epistemological (i.e., involves how SOA changes how we know) than it is ontological (i.e., involves the "being"/structure of the architecture).

Unfortunately, most engineers are so grounded in a Known/Knowable framework that the Complex/Chaotic is often greeted with a blank stare. SOA provides a serious opportunity for these individuals to broaden their horizons.

Notable quote from the SearchSOA.com article: Manes found repeatedly in her research that the "if you build it, they will come" approach to SOA wound up a failure and Roberts confirmed that, saying, "We stopped trying to build business cases for SOA, it wasn't working. Instead use SOA to strengthen the existing business case."

Traditional architects may find little (if any) basis for such an approach in the standard architecting frameworks. That's no excuse for failing to learn from these SOA failures.