Interesting article in Datamation - Randy Heffner seems to be agreeing with many of the things I said at the Microsoft SOA Conference last October.

For instance he says "...you should not be selling SOA. You should be selling the solutions that you’re building" - I couldnt agree more.  My comment was “The first and probably the most important thing to note is that Service Oriented Architectures are a means to an end. At its most strategic level, SOA enables IT to meet the changing demands of businesses and to exploit new business opportunities”

Heffner says “a step at a time, judged by the business value that we accomplish each step of the way.” - again, I couldnt agree more.  I had called out  ‘it is the incremental, iterative, real-world approach that helps you correct your course and deliver value to the business in a meaningful way’.

I do disagree with him on the ROI (or lack) of issue  – any project, regardless of how poorly organized, how over-budget, and how miserably aligned with the business requirements can claim a good ROI, as long as the project costs are amortized over a long-enough period of time. The question is, can the business survive long enough to realize the return? 

Which is why time-to-value is such a key metric IMHO.