As I said in my last post, one of my interests is Enterprise Architecture. So what is Enterprise Architecture ? The Standards & ArchitectureTeam use the following definition:
Enterprise architecture is the process of translating business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating and improving the key principles and models that describe the enterprise’s future state and enable its evolution.
The scope of the enterprise architecture includes the people, processes, information and technology of the enterprise, and their relationships to one another and to the external environment. Enterprise architects compose holistic solutions that address the business challenges of the enterprise and support the governance needed to implement them.
- Gartner G00141795: Gartner Defines the Term “Enterprise Architecture”, Anne Lapkin, July 2006
It is not just a technology discipline - people, processes and information are also part of it.
In a government context: an agency is clearly an ‘enterprise’; agencies in a sector contribute to a wider sector ‘enterprise’; and all agencies contribute to an all-of-government ‘enterprise’. The Standards & Architecture teams use terms like ‘Agency Enterprise Architecture’, ‘Sector Enterprise Architecture’, and ‘Federated Enterprise Architecture’ to differentiate them.
Agencies are autonomous: able to adopt and develop the Enterprise Architecture that they determine best suits them. Many agencies collaborate to achieve joint (or related) outcomes and Sector Enterprise Architectures are emerging to support these collaborations.
The Standards & Architecture Team’s Enterprise Architecture work is to support agency collaboration where there is no clear sector or where there are all-of-government implications. It adopted the term Federated Enterprise Architecture to recognise: agency autonomy; a need to balance agency interests with all-of-government interests; and that agencies would contribute to Enterprise Architecture when applied in an all-of-government context.
