What is Enterprise Architecture?  Enterprise Architecture (EA) means modeling the way that the organization works. The product is a model of how the whole organization works together, from the highest-level business strategies to the most basic technology.

In addition EA is the practice of applying a comprehensive and rigorous framework for describing a current and/or future structure and behavior for an organization's processes, information systems, personnel and organizational structure so that they align with the enterprise’s core goals and strategic direction.

Why is this important? Because you can’t plan for the future if you don’t know what you have right now. The architecture is a snapshot of where the organization is today. Besides showing how the organization works together, it shows where the organization doesn’t work together, or not as well as it should. It also shows up unnecessary duplication. Most importantly, the architecture shows the lines of business so it is clear what the quickest, most effective way is to make improvements in the organization.

What are the federal standards for architecture?  The OMB created the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) to capture what the government does, how it performs its work and what goals it is trying to fulfill. As a guideline, they constructed five interrelated reference models: Performance Reference Model (PRM), Business Reference Model (BRM), Service Reference Model (SRM), Data Reference Model (DRM), and Technical Reference Model (TRM). These models make up the FEA; each of the models map to a specific area of an organization’s architecture. The FEA gives OMB a way to monitor, analyze, and control federal IT investments. It helps standardize IT work across federal agencies and between local, state, and federal governments. Reference Spotlight article, “Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) – a Universal Language”, December 2003.

How is EA used?  The architecture is not just about business; it also shows how the IT supports the business. The inner workings of a large organization are too complex to understand without the architecture models. If decision-makers don’t have a way to understand the whole organization, they will buy products (applications or technology) that support only the part of the organization that the decision-maker understands. The application or technology will be out of context for everything else in the organization. Chances are it won’t work for any expansion or re-use outside its own narrow area, so when the time comes to change or replace it, the organization is hostage to any price the vendor asks.

What are the benefits of EA?  An EA means looking at the aims of the business before buying, so all the applications and technology in the organization are the best overall fit for the business, not just the office using it. For instance, maybe one office in the organization makes a lot of brochures, so that office wants some very expensive desktop publishing software. But everyone else in the organization just needs basic word processing software. Most of what that office does can be done on word processing software anyway. An EA would show the decision-makers whether the organization depends on fancy brochures for all its sales (so the brochure office needs the best possible equipment), or whether the company’s business rarely involves the public (so the brochure office can live with basic software.) The benefits of EA include:

• Software development costs less
• Acquisitions and mergers are simplified
• New business strategies are quickly implemented
• Staff turnover causes less disruption

What problems does EA solve?  OMB is a driving force behind EA, using it to get better results from federal IT spending. According the Mark Foreman, OMB’s Associate Director for IT and e-Gov, the Bush Administration identified the following chronic IT problems that need to be solved:

• Paving cowpaths - blindly automating a process without considering underlying problems with the process.
• Redundant buying - multiple agencies buying the same IT asset.
• Inadequate program management - allowing IT projects to miss cost, schedule, and performance goals.
• Poor modernization blueprints - failing to show how IT capabilities will meet business needs.
• Islands of automation - automated processes are not made to work with other automated processes, so mission performance isn’t improved much.
• Poor IT security - there are government areas with major security gaps.

Back to Main BEA page