Who owns the business case for service-oriented architecture (SOA)?

The answer is best summed up by Neil Ward-Dutton, research director, Macehiter Ward-Dutton: "It depends on the project."

SOA projects, as with IT projects in general, do not lend themselves to easy answers as to who owns what, say analysts interviewed for this article.

This summer, Lewis Cardin, analyst for Forrester Inc. authored a report titled "Who Owns The IT Business Case?" Discussing general IT projects, he said the business case needs a named sponsor. He suggested that sponsor should be a business executive in the area the applications would serve. In the case of a human resources application, the business sponsor might be the HR vice president.

However, in his model for sponsorship there is also responsibility spread from the finance department to IT.