Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Strategy Workshop

To gain the benefits of a service-oriented architecture (SOA) environment, an organization needs to align its strategy for SOA implementation with its business or mission goals. Even more, high-level mission and business goals need to dictate the focus of the strategy for SOA implementation. Strategic alignment focuses SOA decision-making on mission and business priorities, rather than the availability of vendor products or preferences of individuals down the chain of command.

In the SEI SOA Strategy Workshop, participants

• explore the linking of their organization's business goals with SOA strategies
• identify potential pilot projects
• develop a set of high level plans that can form the basis for later implementations

The SOA Strategy Workshop is designed to be delivered on-site. It is also a natural complement to a workshop that the SEI offers on SOA Governance.

Who should attend?

An organization considering

• the development of an organizational wide SOA strategy
• the initiation of an SOA pilot project
• the use of intuitive web portals and services to increase information available to business customers
• the integration of new partners through an environment that features a flexible SOA infrastructure, a very well-described service repository, and clear guidelines for composition
• the improvement of internal processes through the elimination of redundancy between processes and formation of services that access legacy applications

Topics

• Identifying SOA priorities
• Aligning business or mission goals and SOA priorities
• Isolating a pilot project to demonstrate the alignment of business or mission goals and an SOA strategy approach

Course work includes lectures, discussions, and exercises.

Objectives

As a result of this workshop, an organization develops a high level plan to identify its SOA priorities and plan for a set of concrete tasks regarding such issues as

• critical business goals
• relevant business processes to support
• goals (new processes as well as processes that need to be changed)
• legacy assets
• technology base
• human resource base
• business case
• complementary strategic effects

Participants also learn why it is more prudent to begin an SOA implementation with a pilot project that will provide a proof of concept. Pilot projects, they discover, should focus on areas that demonstrate how this approach will work in the organization.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this workshop.

Materials

Participants will receive copies of slides and exercises.

Schedule

This is a 1-and-a-half-day workshop designed to be delivered on-site.

For more information or to arrange delivery, contact Linda Shooer at les@sei.cmu.edu or at 412-268-7622.