Issue 2

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How to Restart an Enterprise Architecture Program After Initial Failure

This article discusses a number of common causes of Enterprise Architecture (EA) Program failures, which in total may be as high as 40% of all public and private sector efforts, due in general to poor execution and a failure to deliver value to the business. The author cites seven areas to address in restarting an EA Program after initial failure, which include: not understanding what EA is; unclear leadership; insufficient resources; the scope is too big; lack of perceived value; lack of use; and competition with other best practices. By mapping the positive and negative results of a failed initial EA Program to the seven common failure areas, an organization can develop an “Organization-Specific EA Implementation Strategy” (OSEAIS) to guide a restart. The OSEAIS provides a comprehensive vehicle for ensuring a common understanding, communication, training, committed leadership, resources, governance, and value delivery. When combined with a mature, proven EA framework and approach, the OSEAIS can provide a reliable method for ensuring the successful re-start of an EA Program.

System Architecture Concerns: A Stakeholders’ Perspective

This article is based on a research on identifying different stakeholders’ concerns for system architecture and design. It explores if the different stakeholders’ need for system architecture information is related to their concerns. It addresses two important research questions on system architecture descriptions, namely, 1) Do all stakeholders have different needs for information on system architecture concerns? and 2) How much of similarities and differences exist between the stakeholders’ need for such information. The authors analyze if the system architecture information needs of the stakeholders’ can be addressed by providing different views to different stakeholders. Based on the findings of their research, the authors propose a two-view architecture framework, Summary view and In-Depth view, which can help development projects that are required to generate stakeholder specific architecture views. The findings of the study suggest that the information needs of different groups of stakeholders for system architecture are driven by their own need to get their tasks of system realization completed.

Coherency Management: Using Enterprise Architecture for Alignment, Agility, and Assurance

This paper represents a significant point of evolution in thought and practice about the design andmanagement of complex enterprises that often exist inhighly dynamic, sometimes chaoticoperating environments. The paper asserts that Coherency Management is the primary outcome goal of Enterprise Architecture (EA); that the architecture of enterprises should be formalized and promote coherency; and the best way to do this is to adopt EA as the ongoing, overarching method for abstracting, analyzing, designing, and re-engineering new and existing enterprises – regardless of the market, industry, or government sector that the enterprise belongs to. EA is about more than technology as it now has strategic and business dimensions – all of which must align to create agility and assurance in promoting transformation and delivering value. The paper discusses three modes of EA, namely Foundation Architecture, Extended Architecture and Embedded Architecture, that represent progression in thought and practice, with emphasis that the modes are independent but not necessarily mutually exclusive. The paper also discusses how collectively these influence enterprise coherency. The paper concludes by elaborating the ways and approaches to assess organizational coherence.

A Primer on Framework and Domain Integration from the Federal Enterprise Architecture Perspective

The U.S. Federal information technology (IT) space is currently experiencing the emergence and promotion of many seemingly disconnected and overlapping frameworks. This article provides an introduction to current prevalent and relevant IT frameworks and suggests possible relationships to the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) and EA function, with the intended audience being the current Federal sector EA practitioner.

Enterprise Architecture as Strategic Vision

Long term planning demands strategic vision, a clear picture of future operations. How does an enterprise create a strategic vision when Information Technology (IT) has become such a powerful force and everything seems to be changing? Part of the answer is to look for stability. This paper discusses the balance between stability and agility in open systems design. Logical structure is stable. The Delta Air Lines core diagram is presented as an example of strategic vision as enterprise architecture (EA). The CIO has an important governance role as sponsor and architect; the CEO as client.