Popular models

The Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI) process improvement approach developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University has been adapted by many EA practitioners as a basis for EA assessment. The result of this adaptation of CMMI is usually a collection of characteristics of effective processes organized by desired states or levels of maturity that provides a model for assessing and improving an organization’s EA processes. The characteristics of each capability maturity level can be evaluated and quantified to track progress towards the next capability maturity level. Higher Ed organizations generally start out at a very low level of maturity such as "non-existent" or "unaware" and graduate over time to higher reactive maturity levels sometimes called "practicing" or "managed" then ultimately to a proactive level often referred to as "optimizing" or "continuous improvement".

EA Capability Maturity Model Components

Most are based on the classic Carnegie-Mellon Software Engineering Institute model and have 5-6 maturity levels beginning with "Level 0 - None" or "Unaware" increasing to levels such as "Initial" or "Aware", then to "Developing" or "Repeatable", then to "Defined", then "Managed" and finally "Proactive" or "Continually Improving". See the example below of an EA CMM used at Miami (OH) University:

An EA CMM will also consist of "Capability Areas", which are logical groupings such as "Architecture Process", "Architecture Development", "Organization Participation" and "Leadership Support" of characteristics of each maturity level. The characteristics, which are typically representative statements, are defined to describe the end state for each Capability Area at each level of maturity. An example of a level 1 characteristic statement within an Organization Participation process area would be "Limited acceptance of the EA process". A level 4 characteristic statement within the same process area might be "The entire organization accepts and actively participates in the EA process". 

Scorecards can be developed and used to measure and communicate capability maturity (effectiveness) and performance (efficiency). Participants in the scoring process should include both IT and business stakeholders in order to obtain the most representative measurements. See the next section "Examples of assessment tools and techniques" for examples.

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