The EA Maturity Model Home focuses on helping EA practitioners make their practices as effective as possible, within their current scope. The model is built around five attributes:
The Scope Definition attribute describes how the scope of the EA practice is defined and evolved.
The Engagement attribute describes how the EA practice engages stakeholders based on its Scope.
The Impact Assessment attribute describes how the EA practice measures its performance within its Scope.
The Delivery attribute describes the means by which the EA practice delivers value.
The Management attribute describes how the EA practice manages itself.
A few scenarios illustrate the relationships between these attributes:
(1) Leaders in central IT have heard about Enterprise Architecture as a discipline and are interested in establishing an EA practice. Based on this new expectation, the leaders should:
Work with their CIO and other leaders to define the scope for the initial EA practice
Identify who will need to engage with the new EA practice to get it started
Propose the impact they wish the EA practice to have in one or more domains
Propose how they expect the new EA practice to deliver value in its first years
Manage resources to form an initial team to start the EA practice
(2) Project managers in central IT would like help from EA in improving solution architectures delivered by their projects, to make their projects more technically sustainable. To meet this expectation, the EA practice should:
Work with leaders such as the CIO and PMO to define the scope this adds to the EA practice
Create or improve engagement with the PMO, with key project roles such as solution architects, and through project governance
Develop ways to measure technical sustainability and the EA practice’s impact on it
Plan to deliver reference architectures for technical sustainability
Plan to deliver training for teams to apply the reference architectures
Manage a team with the right skills for this work
(3) The CIO would like the EA practice to help central IT become more aligned with strategic business outcomes, making the IT spend more effective for the institution and increasing transparency and trust. Based on this change in expectation, the EA practice should:
Work with the CIO to define the scope the CIO expects and that the EA practice can deliver
Create and improve engagement with new stakeholders such as business leaders
Develop ways to measure IT-business alignment and the EA practice’s impact on it
Plan to deliver a strategy consulting function within the EA practice
Manage a team with the right skills to carry out this function
Scenarios such as the ones above arise continuously in the evolution of an EA practice. With each change comes a reassessment of the EA practice: Is our scope still clear? Are we still engaged with the right stakeholders? Do we need to deliver and measure value in new ways? Do we have the right team? The maturity model provides structure for identifying these questions and keeping the EA practice on track to increasing maturity.
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