The EARScorecard – An Instrument to Assess the Effectiveness of the EA Realization Process

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Leo Pruijt, Raymond Slot, Henk Plessius, and Sjaak Brinkkemper

Abstract
To add value to the organization, an Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) function should be able to realize its goals in line with the corporate strategy. In this article* we propose the Enterprise Architecture Realization Scorecard (EARS) and an accompanying method to discover the strengths and weaknesses in the realization process of an EAM function. During an assessment, representative EA goals are selected, and for each goal, the results, delivered during the different stages of the realization process, are identified, examined, and scored. The outcome of an assessment is a numerical EARScorecard, supplemented with a description of the strengths and weaknesses of the EA realization process, and recommendations. To evaluate and improve the assessment instrument, the EARScorecard was used in various organizations. An assessment case is discussed in depth to illustrate the use of the instrument.

Keywords
Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Management, realization process, effectiveness, assessment, scorecard, TOGAF

* This is a revised version of the article “The Enterprise Architecture Realization Scorecard: A Result-Oriented Assessment Instrument”, originally published in the conference proceedings of the 7th Trends in Enterprise Architecture Research (TEAR 2012) workshop (Pruijt et al. 2012). In this article we focus less on the design and more on the practical use of the instrument. Furthermore, to enable the application of the instrument, we present all the indicators instead of a sample set of indicators.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Leo Pruijt is lecturer and researcher at the Information Systems Architecture Research Group of the HU University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands, and PhD candidate at the University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Raymond Slot is professor of the Information Systems Architecture Research Group at the HU University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Henk Plessius is lecturer and researcher at the Information Systems Architecture Research Group of the HU University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Sjaak Brinkkemper is professor of Organization and Information at the Institute of Information and Computing Sciences of Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

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