Enterprise Architecture and Governance Standards

Enterprise Architecture and Other Governance Instruments

• Enterprise Architecture (EA) plays a significant role within various management and governance frameworks, aligning with established standards and complementing widely recognized practices
• EA helps to bridge the gap between business and IT by providing a comprehensive view of the organization's capabilities and how they support strategic objectives.

Relevant Standards

• Balanced Scorecard (BSC): Developed by Kaplan and Norton, the BSC is a strategic management tool that expands beyond financial measures to include customer, internal processes, and learning & growth perspectives.
  • The BSC emphasizes a three-layered structure: mission, objectives, and measures.
  • EA is particularly valuable in the implementation and alignment of objectives and measures.
• Business Model Canvas (BMC): A visual tool created by Osterwalder and Pigneur, the BMC offers a template for structuring and understanding new or existing business models.
  • It consists of nine key elements, including value propositions, customer segments, and channels.
  • The intuitive layout facilitates brainstorming and enables translation of elements into EA models.
• Business Architecture is a blueprint that provides a common understanding of an organization. It helps align strategic objectives with tactical requirements and facilitate the translation of strategy into action.
  • The Business Model Canvas can contribute to the creation of a business architecture model.
  • Capability-based planning serves as a core element of business architecture, emphasizing the "what" (capabilities) before the "how" (implementation).
• European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM): A framework that encompasses a broader scope than ISO 9001 and benchmarked organizational performance against best practices.
  • It focuses on identifying key performance areas and providing consistent measurement and evaluation methods.
  • The EFQM framework complements the Balanced Scorecard by expanding on the process of continual improvement.
• ISO 9001: Defines criteria for a robust Quality Management System (QMS) that documents and controls processes.
  • The standard aims to streamline product realization and focus on critical processes that directly impact product/service quality.
  • The QMS can be certified through an audit.
  • EA assists in conforming to ISO 9001 by providing structured identification and documentation of relevant processes.

IT Governance

• COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology): A control framework that addresses the interplay between business risks, control needs, and technical issues.
  • COBIT outlines critical success factors, key goal indicators, and a maturity model for IT governance, similar to the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).
  • EA and COBIT complement each other, with EA focusing on structures and processes, and COBIT focusing on how IT should be organized.
• IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL): Widely accepted best practices for IT service delivery.
  • ITIL consists of a collection of detailed documents that provide guidance on the provision of effective IT services.

Enterprise Architecture and Other Governance Instruments

• Enterprise Architecture (EA) helps to align strategic objectives and tactical demands
• EA is a business-oriented abstraction that translates strategy into action
• EA is relevant to a wide range of business and IT-related standards

Strategic Management

• The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a framework for aligning business processes with strategic goals
• The objectives of the BSC are: customer, financial, internal business processes, and learning and growth
• EA is especially useful for the latter two perspectives of the BSC

Business Model Development

• The Business Model Canvas is a template for creating high-level descriptions of new or existing business models
• The Business Model Canvas includes seven parts and is often used during brainstorming sessions
• Many elements of the Business Model Canvas can be translated into EA models

Business Architecture

• Business architecture provides a common understanding of an organization
• The Business Model Canvas can serve as a major input to business architecture
• Business architecture focuses on what (capabilities) before how (implementation)

Quality Management

• The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) is a framework for assessing organizational performance
• EFQM benchmarks performance against best practices and provides principles, measures, and indicators for assessing performance
• EFQM complements the BSC

ISO 9001

• ISO 9001 outlines criteria for a good quality management system (QMS)
• The purpose of QMS is to control how processes are performed
• EA helps with process identification and documentation to conform to ISO 9001

IT Governance

• COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology) provides a framework for IT control
• COBIT aims to bridge gaps between business risks, control needs, and technical issues
• EA is a natural complement to COBIT, as EA focuses on business and IT structures and processes, while COBIT focuses on how IT should be organized

IT Delivery and Support

• IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a widely accepted set of best practices for IT service delivery
• ITIL provides guidance on the provision of good IT services