Computing and Information Systems

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a description of an enterprise from an integrated business and IT perspective. Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is a management practice of using EA aiming to achieve business/IT alignment. Popular EA literature states that EA always includes a documentation of current and future states of enterprises and describes EAM as an iterative step-wise process. However, plenty of evidence suggests that the real situation in EA practice and theory is much more diverse but a consolidated understanding of EAM is absent. In this paper we consolidate EAM research and present (1) a reasonable definition of EA taking into account all that we know about EA practice and (2) a consolidated view of EAM describing what we know about it beyond the most popular approaches. We also discuss the relationship between our consolidated view of EAM and the previous research, its implications and directions for future research.

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a description of an enterprise from an integrated business and IT perspective intended to improve business and IT alignment. EA literature describes many detailed EA methodologies, artifacts and frameworks to organize them. However, establishing EA practice still remains a challenging endeavor with a low success rate. On the other hand, this is not surprising since most organizations successfully practicing EA do not follow EA methodologies and frameworks strictly but adapt them to their own needs or even use them only as idea contributors. Therefore, in order to improve the success rate of EA initiatives, it is necessary to understand better how exactly successful companies adapt EA methodologies in practice. In particular, we argue that the most significant problems in EA practice arise because the usage of individual EA artifacts in practice is poorly understood. In this paper we describe how we are going to investigate the usage of EA artifacts to close this gap.

The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is currently promoted as an industry consensus framework for enterprise architecture (EA) representing the best practice of numerous EA practitioners. However, my observations of successful companies using TOGAF as a basis for their EA efforts suggest that most TOGAF recommendations are usually found inapplicable, while the most critical parts of EA practice are usually established from scratch in company-specific ways. Therefore, my findings question the value of TOGAF as a standard for EA practice since successful TOGAF-based EA initiatives hardly overlap with the actual TOGAF prescriptions. More realistic and evidence-based sources on EA are needed.

In my previous article I reported that The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), the most comprehensive and widely known enterprise architecture (EA) framework, is largely of symbolic value and essentially has nothing to do with a successful EA practice. Unsurprisingly, the article provoked numerous comments from its readers ranging from full agreements to total disagreements and even direct insults. Therefore, I feel obliged to clarify several critically important points regarding TOGAF and its relationship to real EA practice. Observations in this article are my personal opinions based on an extensive EA literature analysis as well as on my studies of more than two dozen Australian and international companies with varying degrees of relationship to TOGAF. Two of these companies are included in the official TOGAF list, some of these companies claim to be TOGAF-based, some of them simply used TOGAF as a source of knowledge on EA, while others are largely indifferent to TOGAF.

The conventional wisdom says that the concept of Enterprise Architecture (EA) originated from the pioneering work of John Zachman. He is frequently referred to as the " father " of EA and many consider the Zachman Framework to be the breakthrough that created the discipline of EA and provided the foundation for all subsequent EA frameworks and methodologies. Is Zachman's " A Framework for Information Systems Architecture " really the seminal publication of the EA discipline? Is it really the first EA framework? Did it really profoundly influence modern EA methodologies? In order to answer these questions, in this article I describe an evidence-based history of EA and trace the origins of all essential ideas constituting the basis of the modern concept of EA.

Presently the notion of enterprise architecture (EA) is closely associated with EA frameworks. However, my analysis shows that real EA practices resemble neither the “letter” nor the “spirit” of EA frameworks. Instead, “One Minute Enterprise Architecture” provides much more clear, realistic and powerful way to explain the notion of EA as well as the general mechanism of EA practice. It conceptualizes EA as a collection of four types of EA artifacts (Principles, Visions, Standards and Models) and EA practice as a set of three EA-related processes (Decision-Making, Architecting and Implementation).

Enterprise architecture (EA) is widely used as an instrument for improving business and IT alignment in various organizations across the globe. However, as I previously reported, successful real-world EA practices have nothing to do with popular EA frameworks. Moreover, neither specific details nor even general ideas promoted by the most widely discussed EA frameworks can be found in real organizations successfully practicing EA. How can it be that the most widely acknowledged EA frameworks inseparably associated with the very notion of EA turned out to be essentially unrelated to real EA practices? What does it all mean? My broad historical analysis of the EA literature shows that all popular EA frameworks, including Zachman, TOGAF and FEAF, are nothing more than typical management fads aggressively promoted by consulting companies and gurus. They are useless at best and harmful at worst.

The concept of Enterprise Architecture (EA) is typically associated with popular EA frameworks. However, EA frameworks are far from the practical realities and typically adapted or simplified to fit the needs of specific organizations. Even if used as information sources, they hardly explain the real essence of an EA practice. The frameworks-free conceptualization of EA as a set of Principles, Visions, Standards, and Models presented in this article provides a clearer, more meaningful, realistic, and actionable explanation of the notion of EA. Additionally, this article provides actionable “one minute” guidelines for mastering these four essential components of EA.

At the present moment the entire discipline of enterprise architecture (EA) is essentially based on EA frameworks. However, as I reported previously, EA frameworks are only management fads unrelated to successful EA practices, while successful EA practices look very different from the prescriptions of EA frameworks. This curious situation suggests that the notion of EA simultaneously exists in two parallel worlds: imaginary and real. The imaginary world of EA encompasses all EA frameworks, all famous EA gurus and most available EA publications, while the real world of EA remains largely unexplored. The existence of two different worlds of EA should be clearly recognized and explicitly acknowledged since this fact is extremely important for both EA theory and practice.

Currently Enterprise Architecture (EA) is widely practiced in different organizations working in diverse industries across the globe. Although it is generally acknowledged that there are no universal one-size-fits-all approaches to EA practice suitable to all organizations and industries, features and peculiarities of the approaches to EA followed in different industries are still poorly understood. In this article I analyze the EA practice in a large Australian retail chain operating in the fast-moving consumer goods business, discuss the industry-specific challenges with EA experienced by this company, and describe their potential solutions and mitigation strategies followed by the company.

Enterprise architecture (EA) is widely used in diverse organizations across the globe and is usually associated with popular EA frameworks (TOGAF, Zachman, FEAF, etc.). However, EA frameworks are no more than typical management fads with the long history of unsuccessful implementations and successful EA practices do not resemble the recommendations of these EA frameworks in any real sense. But if popular EA frameworks do not explain real EA practices then how the notion of EA can be explained and conceptualized? Previously I presented the “one minute” conceptualization of EA which explains EA as a set of four different types of EA artifacts, Principles, Visions, Standards and Models. My further analysis of EA artifacts used in successful EA practices shows that the notion of EA can be better explained with a refined taxonomy defining six general types of EA artifacts: Considerations, Standards, Visions, Landscapes, Outlines and Designs.

Enterprise architecture (EA) practice implies developing and using specific EA documents (artifacts) to facilitate information systems planning. Popular EA books and frameworks, e.g. TOGAF or IAF, provide exhaustive lists of EA artifacts to be used in EA practices. However, the approaches to EA advocated by these sources represent typical management fads that cannot be successfully implemented in organizations. Therefore, the comprehensive lists of EA artifacts recommended by these books and frameworks can be considered at best only as “dictionaries” providing little useful information, at worst as a pure science fiction. But what EA artifacts then are used in real successful EA practices? Previously I presented the taxonomy defining six general types of EA artifacts used in real EA practices (Considerations, Standards, Visions, Landscapes, Outlines and Designs). Now, I will discuss eight specific EA artifacts that seemingly can be considered as essential for EA practices and explain how these EA artifacts map to the generalized CSVLOD taxonomy.

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a description of an enterprise from an integrated business and IT perspective intended to bridge the communication gap between business and IT stakeholders and, thereby, improve business and IT alignment. Unfortunately, many companies are dissatisfied with popular heavyweight approaches to EA due to their excessive clumsiness and rigidity. At the same time, alternative lightweight and flexible approaches to EA have also been proposed; however, their existence is not widely acknowledged. In this article I briefly describe these alternative approaches to EA, compare them with the widely-known heavyweight approach, and illustrate their applications in real companies.

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a description of an organization from the integrated business and IT perspective intended to facilitate information systems planning. Popular EA frameworks, books and even academic articles suggest that EA provides comprehensive descriptions of the current and future states of an organization as well as a transition roadmap between them. Essentially, the mainstream EA literature typically describes EA as a thick “book” full of various diagrams with four distinct “chapters”: business architecture, data architecture, application architecture and technology architecture. A relatively well-known EA guru Jaap Schekkerman even argues that EA is a “complete expression of the enterprise”. Accordingly, mainstream approaches to EA, e.g. TOGAF ADM, suggest that EA as a comprehensive book is developed step by step, chapter by chapter and then used as an instrument for planning.
However, all these approaches are based on the false belief widely promoted by John Zachman that organizations can be planned in detail like buildings or any other engineering objects. These approaches represent typical management fads and cannot be successfully implemented, while successful EA practices do not resemble these approaches in any real sense. Unsurprisingly, my analysis shows that the EA documentation in successful EA practices neither can be represented as two separate descriptions of the current and future states, nor can be easily split into distinct chapters (e.g. business, data, applications, etc.). Instead, individual EA artifacts often describe multiple domains simultaneously, can describe various points in time and can even be essentially timeless. Moreover, EA in general cannot be described as a comprehensive “book”, which is developed and then used, but rather as a set of diverse EA artifacts with different stakeholders, lifecycles, usage and complex interrelationships.

In order to address the longstanding lack of reasonable reference models for EA, I thought it would be a nice idea to provide a one-page comprehensive explanatory view of EA, as a collection of specific artifacts used for planning, reflecting actual EA best practices that proved effective in real-world organisations. Such a view can be used as a convenient catalogue of EA artifacts. It can be used as a sense-making instrument or as a tool for thinking around EA. It can be freely distributed and used as a common reference point to start from. It can be printed, used as a poster and pinned on the wall. I called the resulting view of EA artifacts simply as ‘Enterprise Architecture on a Page’, and created a modest website for it: http://eaonapage.com.

The current enterprise architecture (EA) theory originates from the Business Systems Planning (BSP) methodology initiated by IBM in the 1960s and describes EA as a comprehensive blueprint of an enterprise organized according to a certain framework and describing the current state, the desired future state and the roadmap for transition between them. However, in this paper I demonstrate that the current EA theory poses more questions than answers and is, arguably, in an unsatisfactory state. This paper highlights the critical questions in EA research and is intended to spark further conversation in the EA research community. All the formulated questions address the fundamental aspects of the current EA theory that are critically important for the whole EA discipline. Although this paper does not propose any answers to these questions, it makes a non-theoretical contribution to the EA discipline by critically evaluating the current EA theory, provoking new thoughts and stimulating further research that will substantially alter the EA discipline in the future.

The discipline of enterprise architecture (EA) is closely associated with numerous tools including various frameworks, approaches, techniques and modeling notations intended to help architects plan organizations and their information systems. However, for a very long time we have been observing a rather curious situation which can be characterized as absurd, paradoxical or even schizophrenic. In particular, one set of tools is declared as fundamental to the EA discipline, consistently promoted as global EA standards and widely taught in various EA courses, but in reality these tools are largely, if not totally, useless for all practical purposes. At the same time, other set of tools constitutes the actual body of established EA best practices that work in organizations, but these tools are barely discussed and lacking sensible descriptions for newbie architects and students to learn from.

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a description of an enterprise from an integrated business and IT perspective intended to improve business and IT alignment, and is used in the majority of large companies. However, despite that EA was established as an independent discipline long ago, a commonly accepted " big picture " in EA research is still missing. As a result, the scope of the EA discipline is vague, the extent of diversity in EA publications is poorly understood and the progression of the EA research stream over time is unclear. In this paper I conduct a comprehensive EA literature review covering 1075 publications aiming to structure, clarify and consolidate the whole EA research stream. I analyze the distribution of the EA research stream by time, source, research methodology and attitude, code all the issues discussed in EA publications into 42 narrow EA-related topics and 11 broader themes, establish the conceptual relationship between them and present a picture of the EA discipline " on a page ". Moreover, I classify all EA-related topics into four categories according to their lifecycles helping future EA researchers to better understand the evolution of the EA discipline and make the maximum contribution to it.

A rather major event in the world of enterprise architecture (EA) is the recent release of the version 9.2 of the well-known TOGAF standard. The new version was officially announced on the 16th of April 2018 and already engendered some discussions in the EA community. This is the first update of the widely promoted “proven Enterprise Architecture methodology and framework”, as declared on The Open Group website, since the previous version 9.1 released long ago in 2011. How did TOGAF change? What does the new release of TOGAF bring to the EA community? Are there any major improvements in the new version? Did this version address the existing problems of the earlier versions? Did TOGAF ascend to the higher level of its evolution and maturity with the recent release? Below I will discuss the “fresh” changes in the TOGAF standard and analyze these changes in the broader context of the EA discipline.