Bogged down with EA frameworks?

If you are one of those overwhelmed with enormity of the popular EA frameworks, take my word – don’t sweat it too much. It is enough to look at 6X6 table of Zachman framework and understand it completely. You don’t have to go for Zachman conferences (unless you want to get thoroughly entertained. He is a great speaker!)

Don’t get me wrong. I like these frameworks as they give you idealistic view of what all you should consider for your EA exercise. Use these frameworks as reference, but never take on ‘all encompassing’ exercise as prescribed by these frameworks. It will only end when you run out of money.
Take a step-by-step approach. I would like to refer to the disciplines mentioned by Scott Ambler in his Enterprise Unified Process
Define what is important for your organization and only concentrate on those disciplines.

Typically, the EA exercise can be divided into 2 parts –
1) Define Enterprise Architecture and IT strategy roadmap
Here you concentrate on following disciplines –
· Enterprise Business Modeling ( Current state & desired state)
· Portfolio Management
· Enterprise Architecture ( Current state & desired state)
· Strategic Reuse
(Assuming that you have decent software development processes already in place. If not, you will have to include process definition discipline as well. )

Use these models to define the gaps / opportunities with your current IT and define the roadmap for implementation by dividing the work into manageable projects and also prioritize the work depending upon your budget and resource availability.

2) Implementation
Once you have identified smaller, manageable projects, apply the development and support disciplines (as defined in EUP) to each of this project and take it further.

I know, it is easier said than done. If you are doing it for the first time, make sure to have experienced resources on your side – especially those who have failed and learned.