SOA Centers Of Excellence: The Five Most Valuable Practices That Keep SOA On Track

Among the ways to keep a service-oriented architecture (SOA) initiative on track, forming a center of excellence (COE) is a frequently named option. Indeed, a recent Forrester survey shows that having an SOA COE correlates with higher satisfaction with SOA. It is more interesting, however, to note that the most-valuable functions that SOA COEs perform, as judged by our survey respondents, have to do with leadership and governance for SOA, not training on detailed technology skills. As architects plan for SOA and guide their organization in its adoption, they should think of the SOA COE first as a governance body and only second as a training body.