Mike Kavis, had some good thoughts around my posting yesterday. "I just read an entertaining post from Dave Linthicum called Do you Have a DSG (Dumb SOA Guy) Issue? A DSG refers to a person leading the SOA effort who has the political clout but has no clue what SOA is. If you have one of these, you could be in for a long painful and expensive journey." "My head was nodding when I read this. I can tell you from e Mike Kavis, had some good thoughts around my posting yesterday. “I just read an entertaining post from Dave Linthicum called Do you Have a DSG (Dumb SOA Guy) Issue? A DSG refers to a person leading the SOA effort who has the political clout but has no clue what SOA is. If you have one of these, you could be in for a long painful and expensive journey.” “My head was nodding when I read this. I can tell you from experience over the last 18 months that the hard part is culture change, change management, and establishing governance. If you have a few smart architects and a good implementation partner like I have, the technology part can be easily conquered. The hardest part I have experienced from the technology standpoint is getting all of the tools in the stack completely integrated and stable. But even these issues are a one time hit that you have to deal with on your first implementation. ” He goes on to provide some good advice: “The person leading the SOA initiative needs to be strong in the following areas: Technology – must understand SOA at a conceptual level or better Political Clout – must have a high level of influence to remove roadblocks Business – must align technically with business drivers People Skills – must know how to motivate and direct people” I can’t argue with that. Good thing DSGs don’t read this blog. 🙂 Software Development