Author(s)

H. Howell-Barber & J. Lawler

Abstract

As increasingly more firms in the financial services industry expand their use of Web services, and as others begin to adopt services, understanding the planning requirements for this technology becomes increasingly critical for business managers and technologists. This study explores a generic methodology of a Web services plan that can be used to accelerate accurate project planning, helping to avoid project planning becoming a major project in itself. This study identifies critical success factors that contribute effectively to the planning success of Web services projects in the financial services industry. The study furnishes a methodology model for the features of such a plan, by identifying components that can be reused and refined safely for a small inter-departmental project, a medium cross-departmental project, and a large inter-firm project. Business and methodological factors are indicated to be more important than technological factors in the success of the projects, though technology is reviewed in the study, and implications include planning recommendations, as they relate to Web services. This study will benefit management practitioners, researchers and technologists in the successful planning for Web services in the financial services industry. Keywords: BPEL4WS, business process, project plan, service description, service-oriented architecture, SOA, UDDL, Web services, XML and WSDL. 1 Background A Web service communicates using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) messages over HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Services are published and

Keywords

BPEL4WS, business process, project plan, service description, service-oriented architecture, SOA, UDDL, Web services, XML and WSDL.