Category: Topic 3

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Wonkyu Lee

Laura Garcés

An Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA) helps describe/depict the current and future state architecture to support the path necessary to achieve effective changes within the enterprise network.  EIA uses governance to define a set of requirements, principles, and models to allow organizations to better share and exchange enterprise information. EIA provides a holistic view to support to information structure, assets and flow of data throughout the enterprise network, allowing for integration of key systems and components of the enterprise. When implemented properly, EIA is going to help transform organization to support future state business strategy and objectives.

5 Steps to Develop EIA within your organization:

1. Define the organizations scope and mission – Identifying the businesses goals/objectives and values is essential to provide shared vision and understanding across the organization internally and externally. This step will help align business, information, and technical architectures to later define the road map and indicators to measures success for developing EIA frameworks.
2. Identify stakeholders and their responsibilities – Identifying key players and communicating the implementation plan is important for the purpose of buy-in and support. The executive/stakeholder buy-in and support is a crucial part to help make informed decisions that assist with the development of current and future architecture views and support EIA initiatives.
3. Establish EIA Governance – The architecture oversight or governance enables effective policy, planning, and decision making within the EIA efforts, linking such processes as strategic planning, project management, security, and workforce planning. Using defined information sharing practices, used within tools and language will ensure consistency and create a shared understanding between all stakeholders throughout the enterprise network.
4. Determine current state and future state EIA – In order to create a road map that will define success for the organization, you must first understand the current state and future state objectives for business architecture. Both states define a moment in time that represents the organizations position. Using both viewpoints or models can help EIA initiatives by identify gaps and resources to support the development of a transitional road map to achieve success.
5. Develop Transition Roadmap – The transition roadmap is used to describe how an enterprise will manage the transition of its current processes and resources to those in the future view, documenting the enterprise’s performance gaps, resources requirements, planned solutions, and a summary of the current and future architecture. This phase will determine business priorities to support business growth and improvement opportunities.

Once these initial steps are taken, organizations can start to implement EIA Initiatives. As with any process, conducting evaluations and audit will be important to continue growth and improvement. The implementation will also focus on the established information/data, using data analytics to inform and guide decision making processes.

To the audience: What would you suggest differently or change about the steps?

 

Reference:

Gartner. (2007). Ten Steps to Build an Agile Information Architecture. Gartner.

Garnter. (n.d.). How to Develop an Enterprise Information Architecture [GARTNER FOR IT LEADERS TOOLKIT]. Gartner. https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2277059/pages/l03-readings-general?module_item_id=38409528

Monnappa, A. (2017). How to successfully plan your Enterprise Architecture. Simplilearn.com. https://www.simplilearn.com/how-to-successfully-plan-enterprise-architecture-article

Thought Question: How is the Information/Data Architecture Layer shaping Enterprise Systems & Functions?

With todays fast pace technological society, agility is going to have a significant impact on how an organization operates. An organization ability adapts to constant change and circumstances allows them to remain competitive and take advantage of new technologies to help shape future state business outcomes. And the Information Architecture layer plays a significant role to support such agility and influences decision-making processes within organizations. Many large enterprise, utilize the information architectural layer beyond its primary ability to establish connections and define how information is disseminated and shared. Not only is the information/data layer going to connect business entities and help define roles and responsibilities to support key governance for business objectives, but it will help shape future state goals. But how does it help with business growth?  Knowing how and where to adapt organization resource to support business strategy and outcomes is very important and is often derived from the information layer through data-driven analytics. The data driven analytics uses the information layer to analyze patterns and trends across the enterprise to help provide insights and inform key business decisions. The “Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA) layer is the process of determining which information assets should be treated as enterprise information, and creating the requirements, principles, and models that strengthen the network effect of sharing such information across the enterprise.”

So, how much of an affect does information architecture have on the enterprise? In my research, I found a unique enterprise architecture model developed by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) which illustrated a meaningful connection/relationship between several aspects and level of enterprise architecture. The layers of the “cake” represented different views, defining its own principles, data models business rules, and governance process. The slices represented individual business capabilities. And each vertical slice of the cake looks at how the different layers support the business of the organization. This particular model demonstrated the level of complexity associated with enterprise architecture and more specifically how each layer supports the organization as a whole. The WSDOT defines how the information architecture layer connects the business layer with the application layer. More specifically how the layer describes “all of the information assets generated or used by the organization, and all of the functions that support the life cycles of those assets.”

Figure 1: Enterprise Architecture: Cake

However, todays organizations and business represents a complex web of connections and relationships that ultimately support that individual business goals. If there is one thing I’d improve on this model is to demonstrate the external entities/factors that support business strategies and outcomes, whether that be through partnerships or customer relations. Those external entities/factors will have a significant affect in the direction of business outcomes/decisions, which also plays an important role within the information architecture layer. Maybe the external entity can represent a cake knife or candles and how such external entities change or support each layer within enterprise architecture.

 

References:

Bedford, A. D. (2017). Enterprise Information Architecture: An Overview (WA-RD 896.4). Washington State Department of Transportation. Retrieved June 15, 2023, from https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/research/reports/fullreports/896-4.pdf

Gartner. (2007). Ten Steps to Build an Agile Information Architecture. Gartner.