Enterprise Architecture Practice Playbook: Practice Areas of Responsibility

A mature EA practice should be accountable for the following key areas:

1. Architecture Governance
   1. Standards and Governance
      1. Set up standards for apps, infrastructure, and services
      2. Setup review process for the standards
   2. EA Project Management
      1. Project-level compliance reviews
      2. Stage-gate architecture reviews
      3. Solution design pattern reviews
   3. Vendor Management
      1. Formalized process to provide oversight and engagement rules for vendors
      2. Collaborate with both tactical and strategic vendors
   4. Data Governance
      1. Standardize enterprise wide critical data
      2. Provide visibility to the data both for IT and stakeholders for decision making
2. IT portfolio planning
   1. IT asset management
      1. Documentation and analysis on data, app, infrastructure and links to business processes
   2. Road mapping and planning (both strategic and tactical)
      1. Process for managing migration from current state to target architecture
      2. Short-term and long-term plan to deal with the constant change in technology landscape and business needs of the enterprise
   3. New Technology Evaluation
      1. Assessment of emerging and new-to-organization technologies for architectural fit and business benefit
3. Business
   1. IT Business Strategic Alignment
      1. Analysis of Business needs
      2. Translation to IT and EA actions steps
   2. Business Process Improvement
      1. Using process models to inform IT support and resource allocation
   3. Innovation
      1. Innovation in IT systems and functionality to promote business productivity and growth
   4. Business Intelligence
      1. Information reporting and analysis capabilities
4. EA Functional Management
   1. EA Mandate and awareness
      1. Awareness and support for EA’s mandate across the IT organization
   2. Performance Management
      1. Metrics and practices for assessing EA effectiveness and support of business and IT performance
   3. EA artifacts and tools
      1. Selection and development for EA tools and templates for informing IT investment decisions
   4. Talent Development
      1. Development and recruitment of required skill sets for EA staff