I get these about once a week, an e-mail from a Yahoo or Google e-mail account that talks about issues within a large enterprise as related to building their first instance of SOA. The fact is that most of these e-mails are not around proper approaches or the right enabling technology; they are around the people issues. Specially, the emerging existence of Dumb SOA Guy(s), or what I call DSGs.

DSGs are those people (sorry ladies, I'm including you with "guys" as well) who seem to have the political power within the IT organizations, but don't have a clue as to what an SOA is, nor how to go about building one. The core issue is that the "guys" within the organization, who understand what SOA is, and how to build it, typically don't have the political skills to gain control of the projects. Also, the guys that have the political skills, and are the chosen ones for the new SOA work, don't have a clue as to what SOA is, and deal with it as a technology or system, and not what it is…architecture. I bet some heads are nodding as you're reading this post, right?

Again, the technology around SOA is simple, and I never worry about how we're going to leveraged technology to solve a problem. However, the people issues are more concerning and more difficult to fix. DSGs are out there, and I think will continue to grow as SOA becomes more and more the "important project" with high visibility to corporate leadership. I've noticed when that occurs, the DSGs move in quickly to control the projects.

Not sure how to solve this one, other than to shine a light on the problem. Leadership within the Global 2000 will have to understand it, and fix it.

Posted by Dave Linthicum on February 17, 2008 06:00 AM