Case Study: GovDept's Enterprise Architecture Implementation

This case study focuses on the implementation of enterprise architecture in GovDept, a mid-sized government department. It discusses the development of a comprehensive roadmap, key roles of IT, EA artifacts, taxonomy of documentations, operating model, and IT initiatives.

CASE STUDY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
1. Develop a comprehensive road map that helps in specifying what kind of projects should be
executed in future........................................................................................................................1
2. 5 key roles that IT will be playing in GovDept.......................................................................2
3. 5 key EA artefacts that would be delivered in 2 to 3 months..................................................2
4. Taxonomy of documentations that will be implemented and reason because of which it is
important for government............................................................................................................3
5. Discussion of operating model that will be implemented and reason because of which that
model has been chosen................................................................................................................3
6. Role of standard and landscape in implementation of GovDept’s EA....................................4
7. 5 types of IT initiatives that are required to be considered and are extremely important for
GovDept’s EA.............................................................................................................................4
8. Explanation of considerations that would be delivered in GovDept’s EA..............................5
9. 5 subtype of visions that were used in EA artefacts implementation......................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REREFENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
EA or enterprise architecture can be defined as a well- defined practise for conducting
enterprise IT design (Hinkelmann and et al., 2016). One of the main purposes of EA is to
maintain alignment between IT and business concerns. It helps the organization to guide the
process of planning and designing IT capabilities of an enterprise in order to meet their desired
objectives. This assignment will focus on a case study of GovDept which is a mid-sized
government department who is focusing on developing and supporting information system for all
of their business units. They are taking initiative to evolve EA practises and focusing on
developing all kinds of EA artefacts in a specified time period. This assignment will help in
identification of key aspects of information system.
MAIN BODY
1. Develop a comprehensive road map that helps in specifying what kind of projects should be
executed in future
Road map is a high- level strategic document that helps in mapping out all the important
general stages of implementing all kinds of important projects in future (Safari, Faraji and
Majidian, 2016). It helps in explaining all the important project goals and deliverables in a better
manner. Road map for future projects are as follows:
 Goals and objectives: To ensure EA in business and align IT strategies with business
 Timeline to indicate schedule: Main defined goal is required to be achieved within 2 years.
 Important milestones and deliverables:
 Engage all the important stakeholders in order to identify important projects that are
required to be focused on- within 2 months
 Analyse current trends, need of IT within the business- within 6 months.
 Implement advance IT systems in order to centralise all the operations of the GovDept-
within 8 months
 Test the system and resolve any kind of issues or problems associated with it- within 4
months
 Possible risk: Possible risk associated with this road map is that if any milestone is missed or
is not completed within time period then it can affect future milestones such as if current
trends are not analysed within time period then there is a possibility that IT needs and
requirements might change.
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2. 5 key roles that IT will be playing in GovDept
IT plays a vital role in GovDept and will help the organizations in bringing improvement
within their business. Five main key roles of IT within GovDept are as follows:
 Implementation of IT within business will help the GovDept Organization to reduce their
overall operational cost in other words, this investment in IT will help the organization to
reduce cost associated with their current operations.
 Investing in IT and implementing new and advance IT systems within the organization will
also help them in increasing efficiency and effectivity of their business operations. It will
further help in increasing accuracy of their operations in a better manner (Dang and Pekkola,
2017).
 Implementation of new IT system will help the organization to implement EA in order to
align IT and other business concerns.
 Investing in IT will also help GovDept organization to guide their enterprise architecture as it
will directly or indirectly affect designing and planning of IT capabilities of the organization
which will further help the organization to meet all the important organizational objectives in
a much better and appropriate manner.
 Majorly implementation of advance IT technology within an organization will help them to
drive innovation, boost reliability and security of data or information within the organization.
3. 5 key EA artefacts that would be delivered in 2 to 3 months
There are various kinds of EA artefacts that would be delivered to GovDept within a time
period of 2 to 3 months but out of them 5 of them are important that would be delivered within a
time period of two to three months, such as:
 Considerations: this EA artefact will help the organization to achieve their basic IT
principles, values, directions. Here, business focused rules and principles should be defined
which will help in representing overarching context for information system planning (Lange,
Mendling and Recker, 2016).
 Standards: it is one of the most important internal IT tools which helps in representing IT
project implementation. In this technology reference model is developed other than this
guideline is also developed. The main purpose of this artefact is to help organization in
achieving technical consistency, regulatory compliance in an appropriate manner.
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 Landscapes: it is important for IT focused structures as it helps in referencing materials in
general IT technical planning. The main purpose of this artefact is to rationalize IT
landscape, manage assets and plan IT projects.
 Designs: It is extremely important to be focused on for all IT related changes. It helps the
architects to organize IT. The main purpose of this artefact is to help the organization in
implementing IT projects according to the business and other architectural requirements.
 Outlines: It is another important artefact which helps the business leaders to manage IT and
focus on such IT related changes. It helps in estimating overall business impact and values of
proposed IT projects.
4. Taxonomy of documentations that will be implemented and reason because of which it is
important for government
Taxonomy of documentations is an important process to be focused on by GovDept as it
will help them to classify content into different groups. Each classified group has its own unique
characteristics, metadata, content producers etc. it is important to be implemented within an
organization for management of structured data and documents within the organization. It is only
implemented within an organization to access information (Foorthuis and et al., 2016).
Taxonomy of documentations can be implemented within to main steps: first is classification of
every subject and second is rule definition. In this all the items from operational model and from
others will be classified will be classified and them on the basis of this rules will be defined for
manual and automation tagging.
5. Discussion of operating model that will be implemented and reason because of which that
model has been chosen
Operating model can be defined as an abstract or visual representation of way in which
an organization delivers values to its customers as well as ways in which an organization actually
tuns itself. Operating model that will be implemented within GovDept organization is
diversification operating model this is mainly because this model believes that all the business
units within an organization are operationally unique and have independent transactions as well.
It will help the organization to take all kinds of IT decisions within specific business units. Each
business unit has some data standard that are set according to the usage of IT within business
units. In this business process most of the IT decisions and business process designs are made
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according to each business unit. It further helps in minimizing business process standardization
and increases integration in business inti and IT decision.
6. Role of standard and landscape in implementation of GovDept’s EA
Standard and landscapes plays a vital and important role in implementation of GovDept’s
EA. Standards helps in defining governing rules of an enterprise architecture and other
interdependent elements of an EA or of process of developing an EA (Jallow, and et al., 2017).
This is no such universal standards of enterprise architecture. These standards come from
policies, guidelines, constraints, or conformance criteria. These standards are important for
implementation of GovDept’s EA because in includes: security standards, legal standards and
development standards. Each of these standards have their own importance such as: Security
standards includes password policy, authorization, authentication, encryption, information
classification. Legal standards include general protection data regulations, country specific
crypto etc. Development standards includes design patterns, web technologies, naming standards
and many more. Whereas, landscape is the structure of all the information system that are present
within an organization or will be implemented within an organization. It will help GovDept to
get a management view of all the applications and entities related to them that are present within
the organization. For the government department it is important as it helps them to get a view all
kinds of IT system that have been implemented within their organization. So, it can be said that
role of both standard and landscape in implementation of GovDept’s EA is extremely important
for management of IT system.
7. 5 types of IT initiatives that are required to be considered and are extremely important for
GovDept’s EA
Five main kinds of IT initiative that are required to be considered for GovDept’s EA are
as follows:
 Process automation: it is one of the main and largest IT initiatives that can be desired and
focused for automating all kinds of business operations in order to increase overall efficiency
of the business processes. The main goal of this IT initiative is to bring improvement within
all the operations of the organization in a much better and enhanced manner (Vargas and et
al., 2016).
 Increasing employee satisfaction: Another IT initiative is to enhance overall satisfaction of
the employees as bringing improvement within the operations of the organization will help in
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bringing flexibility within those operations which will further help in enhancing overall
performance of the employees because of which satisfaction level of employees will het
increased.
 Reduced risk: another IT initiative requited to be focused and considered is reduction of
overall risk. IT will help the organization to reduce risk associated with failure of the project
or a process.
 Reduced operational cost: Reduced operational cost is another IT initiative which is required
to be considered i.e. IT systems that should be implemented within the organization in such a
manner that overall operational cost of the organization is reduced (Vargas and et al., 2016).
Automation of the business processes will not only help in reducing time associated with the
process or will increase efficiency and accuracy of the project but it will also impact overall
cost associated with the business process or operation.
 Increased customer satisfaction: By increasing accuracy of outcomes of business processes
customer satisfaction can be increased.
8. Explanation of considerations that would be delivered in GovDept’s EA
All the EA artefacts that are required to be delivered to GovDept within a time period of
2 to 3 months are considered because of various reasons such as: Considerations EA artefact is
required to be focused on because it will help GovDept to define basic principles, values and
provide specific direction to information system planning. Standards EA artefacts will help
GovDept to develop guidelines and will further help them with technical consistency.
Landscapes will help in managing and planning all the IT projects that are required to be
implemented within GovDept. Design artefact is required to be focused on as it will help
GovDept to implement all of their IT projects in a proper and defined manner.
9. 5 subtype of visions that were used in EA artefacts implementation
Visions are general type of EA artefacts that helps in describing popular subtypes of
visions. Five subtypes of vision that were used in EA artefacts implementation are: Standard
business process principles, solution overview, technology reference models, guidelines,
landscape diagrams and solution designs (Vargas and et al., 2016).
CONCLUSION
From the above case study assignment, it has been summarised that in order to execute
different kinds of projects in a successful manner it is important to develop a road map as it helps
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in mapping out all the important general stages of implementing all kinds of important projects
in future. Road map helps an organization to complete their deliverables within defined time
period. It has been analysed that EA plays a vital role in building relationship between business
and IT. There are various kinds of EA artefacts that are required to be delivered as it helps in
providing instruments for effective decision- making, collaborative IT planning and effective
communication.
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REREFENCES
Books and Journals
Hinkelmann, K., and et al., 2016. A new paradigm for the continuous alignment of business and
IT: Combining enterprise architecture modelling and enterprise ontology. Computers in
Industry, 79, pp.77-86.
Safari, H., Faraji, Z. and Majidian, S., 2016. Identifying and evaluating enterprise architecture
risks using FMEA and fuzzy VIKOR. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, 27(2),
pp.475-486.
Dang, D.D. and Pekkola, S., 2017. Systematic Literature Review on Enterprise Architecture in
the Public Sector. Electronic Journal of e-Government, 15(2).
Lange, M., Mendling, J. and Recker, J., 2016. An empirical analysis of the factors and measures
of Enterprise Architecture Management success. European Journal of Information
Systems, 25(5), pp.411-431.
Foorthuis, R., and et al., 2016. A theory building study of enterprise architecture practices and
benefits. Information Systems Frontiers, 18(3), pp.541-564.
Jallow, A.K., and et al., 2017. An enterprise architecture framework for electronic requirements
information management. International Journal of Information Management, 37(5),
pp.455-472.
Vargas, A., and et al., 2016. Towards the development of the framework for inter sensing
enterprise architecture. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, 27(1), pp.55-72.
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