There seem to a few companies that are cutting their SOA efforts due to the softening of the economy. No matter if you think its oil prices, the mortgage crisis, or other factors, in many organizations capital budgets, including IT, are being reduced. Thus, what gets cut first? Any special projects, such as SOA. However, that could be a critical mistake. Indeed, much of the money that's leaking out of an enterpr There seem to a few companies that are cutting their SOA efforts due to the softening of the economy. No matter if you think its oil prices, the mortgage crisis, or other factors, in many organizations capital budgets, including IT, are being reduced. Thus, what gets cut first? Any special projects, such as SOA. However, that could be a critical mistake. Indeed, much of the money that’s leaking out of an enterprise is not in the form of “special projects” but the cost of leveraging a less than optimal architecture and technology. The metrics are clear, bad architectures cost millions a year in lost time and productivity, not allowing for the enterprise to be as agile as it needs to be. However, management typically fails to understand this, until it becomes a critical issue that could bring down the company. So, is your SOA project getting cut? Here are a few things you need to consider: First, make sure everyone understands the lost ROI and impact on the enterprise, and do this in dollar figures. You’ll be surprise how much money is being saved, and made, well inline with the investment. You need to make sure you do the analysis. If you can’t defend it, than perhaps the project should be cancelled. Keep that in mind. Second, attempt to shift resources from existing projects to the SOA project. Chances are, you have a few of those around. While it’s a huge political football, once you do the analysis you could find that SOA is much better use for the money. Finally, if the cuts can’t be stopped, plan for the downtime. Make sure that the resources are maintained until you need them again, else the restart will cost much more than it should. Just in case you’re feeling the SOA pinch. Software Development