Enterprise architecture describes the underlying principles, organization and relationship between components of the enterprise. It can be seen as the blueprint of an organization that either emerges over time as the enterprise grows and changes, or one that is carefully planned and implemented. (O’Rourke, Fishman and Selkow, 2003).
Although enterprise architecture has humble beginnings, dating from the information system architectures in the 1960’s, it leapt to prominence in the 1980’s with the publication of the Zachman framework. Since then Enterprise Architecture has grown in importance with a number of formal Enterprise Architecture frameworks developed in recent years.
Examples of such frameworks are the DoDAF (United States Department of Defense Architecture Framework), the MoDAF (The British Ministry of Defence Architectural Framework), TOGAF (The Open Group Architectural Framework), the Zachman framework and numerous other frameworks.
Enterprise architecture provides a coherent link that ties together the different aspects of strategy, business, information systems requirements, information systems design and technology. It is useful to enterprises as it describes how the enterprise is designed, creates understanding in terms of how work interoperate and is coordinated , it expresses the architectural and governing principles and assists with achieving regulatory and legal compliance (Giachetti, 2009). It also aims to align the enterprise strategy with business operations and the information and other technologies that support business operation (Daniel, 2007).
A review of the top issues faced by Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) reveals that they are increasingly concerned about the enterprise’s speed, flexibility and adaptability to change (IOMA, 2009).
As organizations architectural maturity increases they also become more agile. Formalized enterprise architecture aids agility by providing understanding about impact of change and where most benefit of change may be leveraged. (Ross, Weil and Robertson, 2006).
Although enterprise architecture has been around for a long time, establishing enterprise architecture is a relatively new skill in organizations and a lack of resources exist (AFFIRM, 2006). The available frameworks are often complex, requires extensive education and experimentation and are proving difficult to implement in practice.
This blog will aim to discuss the development of simple enterprise architecture frameworks by identifying required enterprise architecture artifacts, leveraging the enterprise architecture assets that already exist and from this define simplified and rapid approaches to the establishment of formal enterprise architecture.
Simplifying enterprise architectures should provide wider and easier establishment of formal architectures in the organization, thereby providing the foundation and tools for organizational agility and change.
References
AFFIRM (Association for Federal Information Resources Management) (2006). Eleventh Annual Top Ten Challenges Survey, Available from http://www.affirm.org/publications/cio-challenges-surveys-reports/AFFIRM2006SurveyReport.pdf, Accessed 24 July 2009
Daniel D. (2007), The Rising Importance of the Enterprise Architect, Available from http://www.cio.com/article/101401/The_Rising_Importance_of_the_Enterprise_Architect, Accessed 23 July 2009
Giachetti R.E. (2009), Design for the Entire Business, Industrial Engineer, 41(6):39-43
IOMA (2009), Steer Your Company through Uncertainty, HRFocus, 86(2):1-15
O’Rourke C., Fishman N., Selkow W. (2003), Enterprise Architecture using the Zachman Framework, Boston: Course Technology
Ross J.W., Weil P., Robertson D.C. (2006), Enterprise Architecture as Strategy, Boston: Harvard Business School Press
What is a Framework? According to Roger Sessions from "Simple Architectures for Compex Enterprises", the Zachman Framework is not a framework, but is a taxonomy that allows the classification of architectutal artifacts.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion about taxonomy and framework is one that frequently surfaces in discussions about enterprise architecture, with one often touted as the weaker concept and the other as the idealised one (which one is which I will leave to your imagination).
ReplyDeleteIn order to properly debate this issue we need to understand definitions of both, so here goes:
Taxonomy is the practice of classification. This could mean that taxonomy would consider artifacts and then classify it according to some sort of defined classification structure. In enterprise architecture this can mean the classification of concepts and the type of artifacts used for the establishment of an enterprise architecture definition.
A framework defines a structure to support concepts, or contain artifacts. For enterprise architecture this can mean that a structure would indicate what artifacts are necessary and where they should fit into the structure.
In terms of the Zachman framework and other frameworks like TOGAF, these arguments are immaterial since these all have characteristics of taxonomies and frameworks. Characteristics common to these enterprise architecture frameworks are:
• Structure
• Defined artifacts
• Classification of artifacts according to the structure
• Process or methodology in establishing the enterprise architecture
• Resources