I attended two recent industry events where the topic, of course, was service-oriented architecture (SOA). However, the information that IT and business executives need to begin their SOA initiatives was not divulged by the panelists or the software vendors, causing palpable audience frustration. The vendors all have a SOA angle and, not surprisingly, it revolves around a license sale of their particular software platform. In my mind, there are six broad questions people are asking about SOA and services:

1) How do we get started with SOA?

2) How do we identify the appropriate services for our initial SOA projects?

3) What technologies do we need and when?

4) How do we measure results? What's the ROI?

5) What organizational, process and skills issues will we face?

6) What governance policies do we need? Who owns the SOA efforts?

Here are the answers:

Question one is the most common question we hear on the field. Most executives are not sure what steps to take to begin their SOA initiatives .

In general, start with a pilot behind your firewall to gain some experience with services. Start small in an area of your business where there is low risk and a clear business "win" associated with the project. Create a focused SOA team to spearhead these efforts. Empower this team to create the first draft of your SOA vision and plan, goals, and standards to employ during the pilot, as well as for ongoing efforts.