Issue 1

Metrics are becoming more and more important in the development of enterprise architecture (EA) programs. Therefore, guidelines and support to define metrics for EA programs are needed. A goal-oriented approach for defining metrics for EA program and the measurement aspects for EA program are presented in this article. This approach was developed and tested during the development of proposals of EA program metrics for two companies.

Information Technology Portfolio Management (ITPfM) greatly improves the value and contribution that IT makes to the business by aligning IT investments with business needs. ITPfM provides information on the likely return on investment, areas for reducing risk, setting priorities, and scheduling projects. Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a comprehensive framework for the management and alignment of an organization’s IT assets, people, operations, and projects with organizational goals. The ultimate aim of the EA and ITPfM integration is to replace the IT portfolio with a business performance improvement portfolio. The most profound outcome of an integrated approach is a structured process to balance demand for projects with supply of IT resources. This article addresses the twin models, financial and IT portfolio models and what approach the EA should adopt to support the development of business cases for investments in ongoing IT programs and new development projects. The most common mistake EAs make in supporting business case preparation, is adopting a financial portfolio model approach, which does not support their efforts. This article advances the argument that EAs would position themselves best by adopting the ITPfM model. The premise for this argument is that most IT projects cannot easily match high yielding projects which easily pass the formal-rational appraisal hurdle.

Scott Bernard interviews Steve Hudock.

This article is the first in a series of three, where we will analyze and evaluate governmental enterprise architecture policies and practices from an international perspective. This first article presents the overall findings from an international study, we have made about governmental EA, and introduces an evaluation and assessment methodology. In the forthcoming articles, we will present an evaluation of selected government’s EA maturity in a comparative perspective, and discuss the usage of maturity models in policy assessment. The third article will present the findings from a 2007 international benchmarking study of more than 20 governments around the world.

This article discusses the implementation of the Japanese version of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (J-SOX) that will occur in 2008 and the important role that enterprise architecture (EA) could play in that implementation. J-SOX enforcement will provide a compelling driver for information technology (IT) system replacements or upgrades that will have a big impact on the IT industry and might serve to establish a stronger EA presence in Japan. However, the successful use of EA methods requires fundamental changes in how executives and managers think about the enterprise, and as such this represents a significant change in corporate culture and governance that will not happen by itself. J-SOX compliance could be the driving force to facilitate EA’s use in Japan because enterprises will need to simultaneously transition to enterprise-level thinking and increase their agility to keep up with changing business requirements and comply with J-SOX.