Does the best technology & architecture guarantee a successful SOA or BPM?

Have you ever wondered that given best technology & architecture ...Are you guarantee a successful SOA or BPM project?

Answer is a simple and a big NO.

There is much more to a successful SOA or BPM implementation & adoption then just choosing the right tools and technology and architecting the finest blueprints. The best and brightest team of IT architects and engineers definitely help to do the toughest of design & implementation projects .... but that is just half the task.

Embracing SOA or BPM or for that matter any new initiative like WEB 2.0 and Collaboration is a major change for the organization. By nature changes are difficult as people see change with a grain of salt and skepticism.

Hence the Architecture Community has an additional and significant responsibility to be the "Change Agents" in the organization. They need to understand basic human nature & group behavior in order to be successful in their SOA or BPM initiative. They need to understand that shift in attitude seldom comes at once. The rate at which different groups, divisions or individuals will adopt these changes will vary by individual, or the type of change or the organizational context.

They need to identify these stages of change and simultaneously work on those while doing their core IT or Business job.

Understand that it is not sufficient for just you to have adopted this change. You have to guide and lead the larger community through the various stages of change, namely

1) Awareness

2) Interest (people develop curiosity)

3) Trail (skepticism is overcome)

4) Adoption

I will further share my experience about managing change during these various stages in some later blog or if there is an interest in the community.

Arvind