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When to Dive In? One question my clients ask me is, "When should we start developing our Web Services?" Too early and you waste $$ and other resources. Too late and you're...too late. I'm working on a more detailed explanation for a forthcoming whitepaper, but here's the basic idea. There are three components:
- Determine your industry's timeline. For instance, when will your closest competitors announce externally accessible Web Services? And don't forget that you may need to use someone else's Web Services (i.e., be a Web Service client) before you release services of your own.
- Where are you relative to your competitors? Using Geoff Moore's chasm analogy, are you an innovator or an early adopter, or are your part of the early or late majority? Combine this with the above to determine when you need to launch your first services.
- Finally, develop the milestones required for meeting your launch.
The last step is where you'll get a surprise. If you do it right (staged delivery and aggressive risk management), you may well find you should have started yesterday. BTW, this strategic/competitive scheduling methodology works for much more than Web Services.
Posted Friday, March 01, 2002 6:52:25 PM 
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