Review By: Herb Ford, Jr.
10/26/2010When reading this book I had to put my current thought process on hold and think of a utopian situation. The concept of self contained software that delivers a specific business function but does not depend on context or the state of other services is really a utopian state of business. From a QA perspective this state of business would be awesome and much more efficient when it comes to testing. The book does a good job in showing how a business can become Agile through several SOA and BPM processes. It is not a very easy read though; the author provides different diagrams and examples that illustrate the multiple methods of SOA and BPM. I do not know many companies that would allow for such a transformation to take place. Although a good transformation, it would be a laborious one nonetheless. I see the targeted audience of this book for System Architects or Business Analyst who have been contracted or hired to overhaul a company model or start a new company. The one key thing the author states, “There is no one size fits all method”. With that said, there are several methods and examples provided in this book and in order to gain the most from the book, one should have previous knowledge of SOA and BPM. Being mobile and agile is the key to most departments so they can keep up with the ever changing request and needs of clients.

This book would be a great read for someone having just taken a course on SOA and BPM. If I recommended this book to a co-worker, I would get the response of “Yes, this is a great idea, but we can not do this here” response. I would suggest reading this book for all system analyst / business analyst, with the hope that they would start to use some of the methodology in their future work. Maybe not for the entire corporate model but, if some of the methods outlined are implemented, maybe a small dose of agility can be added to each of our companies.