Assessing the efficiency of the enterprise architecture function

Abstract

Many large organizations have difficulties managing enterprise transformations involving their extensive and complex portfolio of business processes, information systems, and infrastructure. Enterprise Architecture (EA) is an increasingly important instrument to better manage enterprise transformations. EA provides a means for getting insight into the current state landscape, creating a target blueprint, and setting out a roadmap to achieve that target state. Although investing heavily in EA, few organizations have implemented a truly efficient EA function. In order to implement an improvement cycle for the EA function, organizations conduct efficiency assessments. In this article we present an integral assessment model to determine the efficiency of the entire EA function. Our model takes an eclectic view, which makes it easily adaptable to organization specific characteristics. We use a case description to illustrate the working of our model, and to show which type of concrete insights it provides to identify points for improvement. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.