Enterprise Architecting: Critical Problems

TLDR

Enterprise architecture defines an organization’s components, their interactions, and the IT systems that support business processes, yet many initiatives remain immature and face persistent challenges. This paper aims to survey these challenges and problems to stimulate discussion and explore potential solutions. The authors review and categorize the identified challenges and problems, presenting them as a basis for further analysis.

Abstract

An enterprise architecture (EA) identifies the main components of the organization, its information systems, the ways in which these components work together in order to achieve defined business objectives, and the way in which the information systems support the business processes of the organization. The components include staff, business processes, technology, information, financial and other resources, etc. Enterprise architecting is the set of processes, tools, and structures necessary to implement an enterprise-wide coherent and consistent IT architecture for supporting the enterprise's business operations. It takes a holistic view of the enterprise's IT resources rather than an application-by-application view. Given the size and still immature nature of many enterprise architecture efforts, a number of critical challenges and problem continue to exist. This paper surveys a number of these challenges and problems in an attempt to provide a platform for a discussion on enterprise architecture problems and possible solutions.