Best Practices

Enterprise Architecture is an ongoing strategy, planning and management process to help Business and IT executives to align the business strategy with the execution of that strategy with IT.

Enterprise Architecture Best Practices

• Obtain the organizational buy in, sponsorship and support of all stakeholders in establishing the Enterprise Architecture.
• Establish the management and control structures for Enterprise Architecture governance and compliance processes.
• Define the Enterprise Architecture Framework, the Enterprise Architecture development process and plan the management approach.
• Develop the baseline enterprise Enterprise Architecture, starting from the management view with business principles and business services, followed by high level reference models and patterns .
• Develop the future state Enterprise Architecture model in terms of IT Strategies such as service based architecture, building blocks and component based applications.
• Develop and facilitate a prioritized Enterprise Architecture Roadmap of all the planned architecture initiatives in order to gradually realize the future state architecture vision
• Support the use of the Enterprise Architecture assets, assessing compliance and integrating architecture with the project management and system development processes.
• Maintain and evolve a repository of all Enterprise Architecture models and documents, including all the Enterprise Architecture documents produced by acquisition, development and integration projects.
• Ensure enterprise architecture is a primarily a business-driven, top down process.
• Communicate enterprise architecture plans, value and benefits. Enterprise architecture is 40% communication of the strategies, goals, objectives, roadmap of initiatives and benefits of enterprise architecture throughout the organisation.
• Publicize all the work in progress on the Enterprise Architecture models to all stakeholders. Always avoid making Enterprise Architecture into an 'Ivory tower'.
• Breakdown any process 'silos' and create holistic enterprise architecture models.
• Remain flexible and adaptable to change.
• Build up the enterprise architecture models as a series of realistic and achievable Iterations.
• Remain focused on delivering value in each Iteration.
• Don't be distracted from the future state enterprise architecture by focusing exclusively on quick wins
• Focus on the requirements and demands from the Enterprise as a whole, balanced with the often competing demands from individual business areas and programmes.