Skilled in SOA, business, and tech: Where do we get such individuals?

Where can organizations go to tap into and develop that special blend of skills needed to propel SOA and the business forward? Should they look to their enterprise architects?  Should they look to the outside, or grow talent and leaders from within?

Look outside or grow from within?

I recently had the opportunity to join a panel discussion that delved into what enterprises need to consider in terms of SOA skill acquisition. The panel, part of Dana Gardner's BriefingsDirect series, was held live at the recent Open Group EA conference in Chicago. Dana, I, and other panelists -- including Tony Baer, Eric Knorr, Andras Szakal, and David Cotterill -- talked about the roles of enterprise and SOA architects, then explored the prerequisite of having a strong connection with the business side of the house. (Access the podcast here, transcript here.)

EAs are a natural source of SOA leadership and talent, and the logical first place for organizations to look. However, EAs and SOA practitioners tend to travel in different circles, as explained by Andras, who is chief architect at IBM's Federal Software Group. Their roles "are significantly different," he said, noting that EAs have "a whole set of governance requirements that an enterprise architect is involved with that an SOA practitioner may not be involved with." While there are many areas where the two disciplines intersect, SOA practitioners engage in transforming business processes into implementation, while EAs focus on making sure the organization adheres to enterprise architecture principles, he added.

Tony, who is senior analyst with Ovum, added that many vendors are also having difficulties bridging this gap. The challenge for both vendors and companies, he said, is "trying to define and hopefully raise the consciousness within the EA profession that you need to have more of a business-level sensibility."

Eric Knorr, editor at InfoWorld, noted that successful SOA efforts he's seen are usually driven by a "visionary" type.  Eric noted that "in case study after case study, you run into a chief architect, or even a chief technology officer sometimes, who has really made that connection, in an SOA context, between not only looking at the business processes, but breaking them down into business services and figuring out how to map a technical infrastructure against that. That leadership is so important, because SOA is such an elusive concept that it's very easy to fall back into the old habits of enterprise application integration (EAI), and thinking in terms of point-to-point integration and not thinking in terms about the last presentation, that strategic value."

Eric's comments made me think of Anne Thomas Manes' recent observation that SOA seems to only come to fruition after a new CIO is brought into the picture. Is it necessary to look outside the organizatio, then, for individuals that can bring a fresh perspective?

David Cotterill, head of innovation at the U.K. Government Department for Work and Pensions, agrees that business-tech-savvy people need to be brought in, but also advocated that business-technical skills can be developed from within as well. Business skills "can be learned -- provided you have a certain level of experience," he related. "We try to find people who have a good solid technical background and who show the aptitude for being able to develop those softer skills. Then, we place them in an environment and give them the challenge to actually develop those skills and maintain those relationships with the business. When it works, it's a really great thing, because they can become the trusted partner of our business people and unmask all the difficulties of the IT that lies behind."

In addition, the technical know-how comes into play "so that they can challenge the integrators and the suppliers -- just to make sure that they are doing the right thing, that we're keeping as open and flexible as we would like to be, and so that we're not tied into any given supplier," David said.