Policy management builds added flexibility and business value to your strategy for service-oriented architecture (SOA). Achieving these benefits requires you to enhance your SOA processes and add new features to your SOA infrastructure. From service portfolio management and initial service identification through to ongoing business and technical operation, policy management extends and reinforces SOA processes. As an integral part of pursuing SOA policy management, architects should work with business and development leaders to achieve strong alignment and integration of the policy life cycle with their organization's service life cycle and SOA governance practices. As with all things SOA, an incremental evolution toward policy life-cycle maturity is best.