Compliance Assessments of Projects Adhering to Enterprise Architecture

Abstract

This article examines how to assess projects, which implement business processes and IT systems, on compliance with an Enterprise Architecture (EA) that provides them with constraints and high-level solutions. The authors begin by presenting the core elements of EA compliance testing. Next, the authors discuss the testing process and four types of compliance checks (i.e., correctness check, justification check, consistency check, and completeness check). Finally, an empirical case is reported in which a real-life project has been tested on conformance, demonstrating and evaluating the authors’ approach. The results indicate that objective compliance testing cannot be taken for granted. Therefore, several suggestions are presented to decrease the subjectivity of assessments, such as operationalization of EA prescriptions.