Re: [soa-rm-ra] Update to Governance Section of wiki..

[Francis McCabe <frankmccabe@mac.com>]

Anil:
  The first thing to note is that we do not put a lot of stock in the  
old governance section.
  The second thing to note is that what we need is architectural  
stuff -- what are the key things that need to be put in place in  
order to have a rational approach to governance. Even if the answer  
is a free-for-all, the questions should be the same: how is a SOA  
governed.
A bit like policies more generally: you always have policies relating  
to security (for example), it is just that they may not be written  
down, may be empty, etc.
Frank

On Feb 13, 2007, at 10:00 AM, John, Anil wrote:

> SOA-RA Colleagues,
>
> As discussed at the last telcon, I've been in the process of  
> updating and re-organizing the Governance content on the wiki based  
> on the various inputs including discussions at the Face-2-Face  
> meetings.
> http://wiki.oasis-open.org/soa-rm/TheArchitecture/Governance (Also  
> included in this e-mail below)
>
> As I was going though the existing content (which can now be found  
> on http://wiki.oasis-open.org/soa-rm/TheArchitecture/Governance/ 
> OldGovernanceContent), the thought that kept running through my  
> mind was that a majority of what was there really came under the  
> management umbrella and not the governance umbrella.
>
> Would appreciate your thoughts.
>
> Regards,
>
> - Anil
>
> 1. What Is Governance
> The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the  
> "OECD Principles of Corporate Governance" [1] defined Corporate  
> Governance as providing the structure for determining  
> organizational objectives and monitoring performance to ensure that  
> objectives are attained. The OECD was careful to note that there is  
> no one single model for good corporate governance and as such,  
> different organizations may have different perspectives on what  
> constitutes good governance.
>
> Corporate governance is a broad topic and deals with a variety of  
> aspects such as human resources, physical assets, financial assets,  
> Information Technology and more. But given the context of  
> Governance for SOA, we are primarily concerned with how best  
> Information Technology (IT) assets are organized to deliver value  
> to the business. In short, with IT Governance.
>
> Peter Weill and Jeanne Ross of MIT defines IT Governance as  
> "specifying the decision rights and accountability framework to  
> encourage desirable behavior in the use of IT" [2]. This decision  
> captures the reality that each organization will have a range of  
> governance depending on the perceived needs of the participants,  
> given that the definition of what constitutes desirable behavior  
> will vary depending on the organizations and participants.
>
> 2. Governance and Management
> It is worthwhile to distinguish between Governance and Management  
> before proceeding any further.
>
> Governance determines who makes the decisions. It implies the  
> authority to govern. That authority could be formal or informal and  
> could be codified in an explicit manner or implied. It is about  
> having the decision rights to influence conduct to ensure desirable  
> behavior and the authority to adjudicate when issues arise.
>
> Management, on the other hand, is the process of making and  
> implementing the actual decisions.
>
> 3. IT Governance and SOA Governance
> It is hard to draw a clean line of separation between IT and SOA  
> Governance, but one particular point of differentiation is the  
> concept of ownership boundaries.
>
> Traditional IT governance has implied governance applied within a  
> single Enterprise; a single ownership domain, if you will. Given  
> that the SOA-RM defines SOA as a paradigm for organizing and  
> utilizing distributed capabilities that may be under the control of  
> different ownership domains, the concepts of SOA Governance are not  
> limited to just a single Enterprise but must also apply across  
> Enterprises i.e. across ownership domains.
>
> As such SOA Governance should be considered an extension of  
> existing IT Governance that deals with the decision rights,  
> processes and policies that are put into place to encourage the  
> adoption and operation of a SOA that may cross ownership  
> boundaries. At the same time, it should also be recognized that the  
> desirable behaviors that need to be encouraged in a SOA  
> implementation may conflict with the existing mechanisms that are  
> in place as part of the existing IT Governance and the mechanisms  
> that are in place for the management of IT need to be extended and  
> modified to account for SOA.
>
> 4. Why Is Governance Important to SOA?
> (To be further structured and expanded)
>
> 4.1. SOA Without Governance
> (To be further structured and expanded)
>
> 5. Implementing SOA Governance
> Define goals and strategies that map into the enterprise's overall  
> business strategy and culture
>
> (To be further structured and expanded)
>
> Create the organizational structure, appropriate to the organization 
> (s), with the appropriate the decision rights (This may be across  
> ownership domains)
>
> (To be further structured and expanded)
>
> Formulate polices, processes and define the standards that are  
> appropriate to the domain
>
> (To be further structured and expanded)
>
> Define the metrics
>
> (To be further structured and expanded)
>
> Put mechanisms into place that provides for the enforcement of  
> policies and the ability to collect metrics
>
> (To be further structured and expanded)
>
> Implement feedback and adjudication mechanisms that can adjust the  
> existing policies as needed
>
> (To be further structured and expanded)
>
> Execute and refine on an ongoing basis
>
> (To be further structured and expanded)
>
> 6. References
> [1] Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,  
> Directorate for Financial, Fiscal and Enterprise Affairs, OECD  
> Principles of Corporate Governance, SG/CG(99) 5 and 219, April 1999
>
> [2] Harvard Business School Press, IT Governance: How Top  
> Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results, Peter  
> Weill and Jeanne W. Ross, 2004
>
>
>
> :-
> :- Anil John
> :- Johns Hopkins University - APL
> :- http://www.jhuapl.edu
> :- (240) 228-0612
> :-
> :- E-Mail Response Time: 24 hrs