My colleague maintained that it was indeed a SOA. This of course set me off on my lecture circuit on how SOA was not about creating a bunch of web services and registering and managing them. Its about composition and granularity and categorization and flexibility and, you know, all that other stuff. Once my colleague understood my argument he made the comment that to this day perplexes me. He said, "OK, I see. But it is still a SOA, its just a SOA maturity level 0."
What do you say that? I can't argue with it. Its not UNtrue. But it certainly isn't necessarily accurate. Needless to say our conversation ended then and there and I have been thinking about it ever since.
What is this monster we've created called the Maturity Model? Sure its useful and when used in the correct context it can be a very important measuring stick. But is that how it is being used? Are people comparing themselves against the model, determining where they stand and then making plans and preparations on how to get to the next level?
I'm afraid to say I don't think so. I think people are evaluating where they stand, finding they are at level 0 or level 1 and then forgetting about it. Did they do anything to get to level 1? Probably not. Maybe next time they evaluate themselves (or have some else do it) they will find they are at level 2. Great! But how did you get there. Did you mean to? What level will you be at the next time you evaluate yourself? Will you even do it again?
I think in reality the maturity model is being used as a blankey. You know the thing Linus had in the Peanuts. It seems to make people feel good about where they are. Consider the following:
Which makes you feel better?
- Your fat
OR
- Your skinny maturity level 0
To be fair, the blame needs to be spread just a bit. It is not just IT departments that are snuggling in the warmth of the maturity model. It is the consultants as well. Do you have the balls to tell someone they are not where they think they are? Or will you just tell them they are maturity level 1 and make them feel better.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying to hell with maturity models. I'm just saying, don't let it be a passive artifact you warm up to in order to explain your current state. Let it be an active artifact that you are consistently measuring yourself against. Your plans should involve a strategy for achieving the next level. Only then will you be using the maturity model for what it was meant for.
Until next time,
This is Jason Henley, International Heartthrob... Maturity Level 0.
1 comment:
An interesting post and one that to some extent I have to disagree with. Yes, for sure we can use the maturity model to assess where we are and then decide that it is too much effort and not go further.
Or we can do as we are doing at one MomentumSI client. We used the MomentumSI maturity model to get a very frank (and rather uncomfortable) assessment of where we are, generated some recommendations to move forward to the next levels and are actively working them. This is how it should be, of course.
Why does this client do it and other companies not? I think to a large extent it depends on what the pain drivers are, and therefore what we need to do to overcome the pain. My client recognizes that they have a lot to do to overcome the current pain of a high volume system running as monolith with change rolled out very frequently. Tough environment and one that can definitely benefit from an SOA.
They have taken a realistic look at the levels of maturity across the multi-dimensional model and realized how far they need to go to achieve the benefits they need. They may go further at some point, but they have determined that there are some places they need to go, but they don't have to be level 5 in every dimension.
Chris Bird
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