SOA Governance - Road into Maturity

TL;DR

This paper explores how organizations can improve SOA governance to achieve higher maturity levels, identifying key aspects and practical concerns through literature review and interviews.

Contribution

It introduces a list of SOA aspects crucial for governance and reveals their importance in reaching higher SOA maturity levels based on empirical interviews.

Findings

Key SOA aspects are vital for effective governance.

Practical concerns significantly impact SOA maturity.

The study offers recommendations for organizations.

Abstract

There is a general consensus that SOA benefits could be reached but it is unclear how to achieve this. Research shows that the problems with SOA governance in practice are among the major reasons of SOA failures. Based on a literature review, this study first proposes a list of SOA aspects to be considered when implementing SOA governance. By adopting an interpretive research methodology based on interviews, this research paper makes two contributions: it addresses the practical matters that are major concerns for organisations to achieve a higher maturity level with their SOA, and it reveals the importance of the key SOA aspects in building strong governance and consequently reaching a higher maturity level. The expected result should deliver a theoretical contribution to SOA maturity in relation to SOA governance; it could provide organisations with new awareness in assessing their level of maturity and provide recommendations.