Create a Roadmap to Success with Enterprise Architecture
NASCIO has published extensively on the subject of enterprise architecture, which we define as:
“A management engineering discipline that presents a holistic, comprehensive view of the enterprise, including strategic planning, organization, relationships, business process, information and operations. The organization must be viewed as fluid, changing over time as necessary, based on the environment and management’s response to that environment.”
Essentially, EA in state IT is the roadmap for success: It encompasses the enterprise, its mission, vision, goals, objectives, strategies and necessary capabilities to deliver the value inherent to the CIO office’s mission. EA is the way that gaps in existing capabilities are identified so that new capabilities or modifications can be evaluated, prioritized, funded, delivered and adopted.
As new capabilities or modifications are established, they must be maintained as enterprise assets and investments through contract management, asset management, cost accounting, budgeting, and retirement and disposal of obsolete technology. This is an ongoing and never-ending cycle where many wheels turn in concert as part of ongoing state government transformation.
As EA continues to evolve and new methods for documenting and managing enterprise architecture are developed, new methods are also arriving for portfolio management and IT investment management.