In my coming book (Ladder to SOE) I elaborate on David Linthicum's metrics on SOA ROI and has come with a few formulas for different implementation scenarios. Unfortunately, the book will be available in June/July this year.
I agree with Rob (:-), architecture itself is not the biggest contributor into ROI but its *enabler*. -Michael ________________________________ From: Rob Eamon <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 6:24:15 PM Subject: [service-orientated-architecture] Re: Linthicum on ROI I'm reminded of Anne's point (also made by others?) that architecture isn't the effort/project of interest. It is the broader effort that prompted the architecture definition/rework that is key. One doesn't "do architecture" for the sake of architecture. "ROI of architecture" is misplaced, IMO. The creation of a blueprint to guide the creation of something is but a small part of the entire process. Thoughts? -Rob --- In service-orientated- architecture@ yahoogroups. com, Todd Biske <toddbi...@. ..> wrote: > > Reading this makes me wonder how many other efforts fall into the same > category? Lack of a business case or clear ROI is not a problem > specific to SOA. It is a problem for everything IT does. This is why > it is no surprise to me that Anne found a positive correlation between > solid application rationalization/ portfolio management efforts with > SOA success. I suspect the same thing will be true with cloud > computing, at least for companies with existing infrastructure. For > startups, it is a different story since they don't have to answer the > "what are my current costs" question. > > -tb > > Todd Biske > http://www.biske. com/blog/ > Sent from my iPhone > > On May 21, 2009, at 7:24 AM, Gervas Douglas <gervas.douglas@ ...> > wrote: > > > > > > > Thanks to Anne for pointing out this article: > > > > > > "A new Gartner survey of SOA architects finds 40 percent do not > > measure how long it takes to achieve a ROI for their SOA -- or if > > the darn thing had any business benefit, for that matter. Shame on > > you guys! According to the survey: > > > > Gartner, which carried out the survey among enterprises from around > > the world, also highlighted the fact that 50 per cent of those who > > had not yet adopted SOA technologies did so because they could not > > articulate and demonstrate the business value of it. > > > > [ Keep up on developments in SOA with InfoWorld's Technology: > > Architecture newsletter. ] > > > > The fact is that people love doing SOA, or SOA-like things, but hate > > doing the business cases or, more importantly, the analysis that > > needs to be done on the back end. There are no reasonable > > expectations set going into the project, nor any measurement of > > success on the back end. Thus, who knows if the SOA provided any > > business value? Also, there are no clear objectives. > > > > Massimo Pezzini, research vice president and fellow at Gartner, said > > that many companies were approaching SOA projects with excessive > > expectations and little awareness of the effort, resources and time > > needed to achieve any benefits. > > > > Some SOA projects are perceived to have failed when in fact there > > are simply no well established metrics to evaluate success," he said. > > > > Folks, you can't figure out if SOA is going to have any business > > value without doing a business case up front. This means > > understanding your core needs and how SOA will create an > > architecture that solves actual problems, and not just looking to > > push out an SOA because it seems like the right thing to do. > > > > The metrics/analysis are pretty simple: > > > > What are the current inefficiencies within the enterprise > > architecture, and how much do you think that's costing the business? > > What is the value of reuse, and how much reuse can you expect? > > What is the value of agility? > > What is the estimated cost of the project? > > What are the estimated benefits from the dollars spent? > > More importantly, how we define success -- or when we've achieved > > the objectives of the project? > > > > There's no excuse for leaving the ROI analysis out of this process. > > You've been hearing that from me for years, so go run some numbers." > > > > You can read this at: > > http://www.infoworld.com/d/architecture/soa-roi-does-not-seem-be-priority-265 > > > > Gervas > > > > >
