Enterprise Architecture: A Pocket Guide

Enterprise architecture is a key competency for most large organizations of the present day. Its roots reach back some twenty years or more, in early efforts to re-use knowledge about software structure and design to assist in managing a rapid growth in the cost and complexity of IT systems in general. Compliance to a formal enterprise architecture framework is now mandatory in many government and defense contexts, and is increasingly common in larger organizations elsewhere. For most of its history, enterprise architecture has been regarded as belonging under IT governance. Yet at the present time the discipline is evolving once more, and extending its scope to become a literal architecture of the enterprise. This Pocket Guide describes the purpose, role and value of architecture in the enterprise, and the makeup and skill sets of the architecture team in different business contexts. It explores the relationship between architecture, project management, change-management and governance, and summarizes the frameworks, methods, standards and tool sets currently in common use. And finally, it provides a brief outline of the typical activities and processes that are used in the development and realization of an enterprise architecture.