I was at Booz Allen yesterday in Tyson's Corner Virginia to do a ROI and SOA presentation for their consultants, there in person and on closed circuit video. Good group of people, and they are now serving the government's SOA needs, perhaps leading the way in some respects. The ROI issues are taking center stage these days now that SOA projects are starting all over the world and the execs at these organizations I was at Booz Allen yesterday in Tyson’s Corner Virginia to do a ROI and SOA presentation for their consultants, there in person and on closed circuit video. Good group of people, and they are now serving the government’s SOA needs, perhaps leading the way in some respects. The ROI issues are taking center stage these days now that SOA projects are starting all over the world and the execs at these organizations, both government and commercial, are asking: “How much money will this save us?” The notion of ROI and IT has always been a tricky issue. While there are common metrics that one can put forth around the value proposition of IT in general, or a specific approach such as SOA, the fact is that you need to look closely at the particular problem domain to come up with approaches to ROI that are useful. There are two major dimensions here, first the influence of the business, and the realities of the technology. The business is the single most critical dimension when you consider the ROI of SOA, which is surprising to most that are promoting this technology. Truth-be-told the business needs to value certain things in order for SOA to be valuable, namely an agile architecture that is able to quickly align with the business. Old news in the world of SOA, but the value of SOA really relates to the business’ ability to change, and support a culture of change. You can have the greatest, most agile, SOA in the world, but if you’re not able to change the business, perhaps the culture does not support it, than the SOA will have little value. If you value change, and can change, then SOA has a huge value. The technology is easy, when you compare it against the difficulties with changing business and culture. The ROI of the technology is directly related to the cost of the technology as compared to its value. I’ve not run into any problem I could not solve using technology. However, the real trick is leveraging the right technology that meets the requirements, thus minimizing costs, and maximizing impact. By doing that you’re maximizing ROI. My ROI work is heating up, glad the interest is there. I think it’s healthy. Â Â Software Development