This paper presents an integrated service-oriented enterprise system development framework (called the BITAM-SOA Framework) as well as an instantiated design process model (called the Service Engineering Schematic) that was a result from a three-year action research case study with a Fortune 50 company in the financial services industry. The BITAM-SOA Framework and Schematic advance are both business-IT alignment and software architecture analysis techniques supporting the engineering of enterprise-wide service-oriented systems-that is, service engineering.

Service engineering, the application of engineering disciplines to develop service-oriented enterprise systems (service systems) with predicable results, has faced a brand new array of challenges in recent years. Existing development approaches that might help addressing these challenges are scattered in separate research fields or in different units of an organization, just like the "blind men and the elephant." This article presents a 3-year action research case study with a Fortune 50 company in the financial services industry, validating an integrated service-oriented business-IT alignment framework, called the BITAM-SOA Framework, to shed light on complex service engineering issues, including the interplay between business-IT alignment approaches (alignment via architecture, via governance and via communication) and Service Oriented Architecture adoption as well as methodological challenges of service engineering. The importance of the social dimension of service engineering is illuminated. The results yield lessons learned, managerial insights and integrated methods for effective service engineering.