Wednesday, January 24, 2007

ERS - Empty Registry Syndrome

I've met a number of organizations recently that seem to have a bad case of ERS, or Empty Registry Syndrome. This disease must be taken seriously. It is known to be fatal to service oriented initiatives.

Common causes of ERS include:
- Not having a 'shared services group'
- Not monitoring the project pipeline and identifying service early
- Silo-Oriented requirements gathering
- Buying a bad registry

Luckily, ERS is completely curable. By changing habits an organization can usually treat the disease in 3-9 months. It should be noted that the treatment can be painful and takes real commitment.

Common treatments:
- Give the development organizations goals related to service creation. The SOA initiatives MUST move beyond enterprise architecture and integration centers
- Revise the I.T. governance, funding and portfolio management processes to find services early
- Train business analysts and application designers to 'identify, analyze and design' services; people were not born with this skill
- Verify that your registry doesn't stink. Here's the test: If you search for a service that doesn't exist does it return with:
A) No results found
or
B) No results found, would you like to request a new service?

If the answer is "A" please call your vendor and let them know that their software is spreading a disease known as ERS.

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