Sometimes even a buzzword has meaning. Take the notion of “governance.” As in corporate governance, IT governance and yes, now SOA governance.
To some extent, governance is the latest marketing buzzword. Think of it as the paperless office craze in the 1980s, updated for the 21st century with its implied focus on control and efficient management of IT (or application or SOA) environments.
Over the past few years, it’s been hard to escape the marketing slant of governance. While it’s a somewhat overused term, I don’t think it’s one that’s going away anytime soon. Over the past five years we’ve seen a dramatic change towards much greater scrutiny and cost/benefit analysis of IT investment and returns. The general focus we’ve seen on governance is a result of this general business pressure for higher profits and reduced technology investment. As a result, organizations, CIOs and IT managers are leveraging portfolio management practices to justify, expand and explain the value and benefits of their IT resources through the use of IT governance approaches.
