The Enterprise Architecture Kickstart Program seeks to inject and EA program into an organization
that has limited EA disciplines in place and is seeking to kick-start their Enterprise Architecture
program. It combines some of the EA theory with a practical 25 day implementation cycle wherein
the participants will develop an actual EA skeleton framework for their company which thay can
then build upon going forward through the various iterations of a full EA implementation.
It will have also equipped the team effectively with some of the theory to give the EA initiative the
momentum required to be effective in the organization.
It must be highlighted that this is a semi-training, semi-actual deliverable approach. The outcome is
by no means a completed EA or a complete set of artefacts. However, the team and students will
have an actual EA and initial skeleton framework to have developed a solid understanding of the
domain in order to take it further into the next iteration.
The program agenda is detailed below:
Week 1
All participants will go through the Advanced EA Course to provide the theoretical baseline for the
exercise.
The following will be dealt with during this initial week:
• EA Strategy (EA Assessment, EA • Technology Architecture
Planning & EA Principles) • Rollout Plan and Migration
• Business Architecture • Conclusion and Buy-In
• Enterprise Surveys • Transition and Implementation
• AS-IS Modelling • Portfolio Management and
• Information Architecture Governance
• Business Systems Architecture
Week2
The team will perform the following tasks on their company specific data:
3. EA Planning Exercise
Planning and project logistics around the effort of the jumpstart program and the follow on
iterations.
Helpful Inputs Outputs:
o List of current projects o Team structure
o List of team members o Landscape Picture
o Organizational Structure o Macro Plan
o Committed resources for the full 25 days
o Current Toolsets
4. EA Principles
Principles are critical for quick decision making. Some preliminary principles will be defined
here as a baseline exercise. These must be rolled out to the organization as soon as possible
to begin to enable the governance processes of the EA exercise.
Helpful Inputs Outputs:
o Policies
o Guiding Principles
o Post project assessment forms (if any)
o Initial skeleton principles
Week 3
1. Business Architecture
The team will develop a preliminary skeleton business model based upon the functional
organization structure. The model will only be built internally in this iteration and will not be
distributed to the wider organization or SME level until iteration two.
Helpful Inputs Outputs
o Current organization structure o Project Charters
o Current business model o Current System Documentation
o Current process model o Preliminary Functional Business
o Current Projects Model decomposed to a reasonable
o CSF’s level
2. AS-IS Assessment
The AS-IS assessment takes the current IT landscape and maps it to the defined business
model above. Through this exercise the team ill be able to determine where gaps and/or
overlaps exist in the current environment. The AS-IS assessment will also give business a
good indication of how well the IT resources are meeting business requirements.
Helpful Inputs Outputs
o Current system documentation
o Current application documentation
o Current infrastructure documentation
o Current interface and integration documentation
o Current project landscape
o Preliminary Functional Business Model
o Preliminary resource catalog
o Resource catalog mapped to the business architecture
o Preliminary gap analysis
Week 4
1. Information Architecture
The information architecture will address certain information consumption and creation
rules to develop an initial business information architecture. The information architecture
shows what data is manipulated by which areas of the business.
Helpful Inputs Outputs
o Asset registers
o Current data dictionary
o Class and entity diagrams
o Current process models
o Preliminary Functional Business Model
o Information Model
o Skeleton mapping of the data to business model
o Initial understanding of relationships between the data and the business model
2. Rollout Plan
The rollout plan formulates and prepares a plan for the implementation of the architectures.
It looks at the current environment and the defined blueprint architectures and determines
the most suitable rollout structure and timescale.
Helpful Inputs Outputs:
o AS-IS Assessment
o Information architecture
o Business Systems Architecture
o Technology Architecture
o Current Projects
o Gap analysis (AS-IS and TO-BE)
o Initial high level rollout plan
o High level CSF’s
o Next Steps Plan