Clinger-Cohen Core Competencies & Learning Objectives
11.0: Enterprise Architecture
General Discussion: An enterprise architecture (EA) establishes the agency-wide roadmap(s) to meet mission and strategic goals through the optimal performance of core business processes and supporting information resources (e.g. systems, applications, databases, websites, and networks). Enterprise architecture roadmaps are essential for transforming the existing business processes and IT solutions to an optimal business capability target that provides maximum mission value. EA includes agile plans for transitioning from the current business and technology operating environment to the target environment.
11.0 LO 1: Explain the multi-dimensional nature of how enterprise architecture describes and documents the existing and target enterprise, how architecture supports the organization’s current and future mission, and why architectures must be agile in order to support changing conditions.
11.0 LO 2: Describe business reasons for developing an enterprise architecture (EA) and discuss benefits that can be derived from successful implementation of a sound EA.
Competency 11.1 – Enterprise architecture functions and governance
11.1 LO 1: Identify and describe roles in an EA program, such as those for the Executive Sponsor, Chief Information Officer, Chief (or Enterprise) Architect, Solutions Architects, Data Architects, and Systems Architects.
11.1 LO 2: Describe the symbiotic relationship between strategic planning and EA and their impacts on visionary planning, portfolio management, and IT governance.
11.1 LO 3: Describe and discuss impacts of key regulatory requirements and guidance as they relate to enterprise architecture.
11.1 LO 4: Describe the role of the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) and how it contributes to cross-agency architecture practices.
11.1 LO 5: Discuss the role of the Federal CIO Council in influencing agency EA practices.
11.1 LO 6: Identify the EA responsibilities of internal agency managerial boards and committees and how they contribute to the agency’s business and technology governance processes.
11.1 LO 7: Describe how EA governance and EA planning provide complementary roles and discuss the benefits of integrated governance and planning processes.
Competency 11.2 – Key enterprise architecture concepts
11.2 LO 1: Identify and describe the purpose of the main elements of an enterprise architecture, including drivers, analysis, strategic direction, baseline and agile targets, focused road maps, alignment to services, programs and portfolios, work products, standards and best practices.
11.2 LO 2: Describe the major EA components and how they are used in decision making, prioritization and budgetary processes.
11.2 LO 3: Describe the relationship between EA and emerging technologies and standards, as well as the use of accepted standards.
11.2 LO 4: Compare and contrast the dimensions and benefits of different architectural frameworks.
11.2 LO 5: Describe the purpose and use of reference models in enterprise architecture development and how they bring value to the decision making, prioritization, and budgetary processes.
11.2 LO 6: Describe how the FEA reference models and profiles can be used to support agency IT program analysis and annual status reporting.
11.2 LO 7: Identify EA best practices for each level of the architecture and demonstrate how to apply them in practical ways to optimize IT portfolios, programs and services.
11.2 LO 8: Discuss the need to integrate security and privacy requirements into the EA. Include issues such as cross-realm security, security consequences of aggregated architectural data, common identity management approaches, data loss prevention and revocation/repudiation mechanisms.
Competency 11.3 – Enterprise architecture interpretation, development, and maintenance
11.3 LO 1: Discuss how to assess an agency’s baseline architecture in terms of its effectiveness in meeting enterprise/strategic goals and performance goals and identify gaps that should be addressed.
11.3 LO 2: Describe basic architecture documentation (i.e., work product) methodologies at each level of a commonly used framework (e.g., Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF), the Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DODAF), or the Zachman Framework).
11.3 LO 3: Discuss the purpose and value of automated tools to document, analyze, and monitor the enterprise architecture.
11.3 LO 4: Discuss the importance and key aspects of model interpretation in understanding and sharing metadata, integration and component reuse, and achieving interoperability.
11.3 LO 5: Discuss the benefits and importance of understanding the history of an organization’s architecture and the business cases that were used to support it.
11.3 LO 6: Discuss the relationship between the strategic planning process and EA and how linking these disciplines improves IT portfolios and operations. (See also 5.1 LO 6.)
11.3 LO 7: Compare, contrast and evaluate internal and external drivers for new and emerging technology and their business implications.
Competency 11.4 – Use of enterprise architecture in IT investment decision making
11.4 LO 1: Discuss the importance of mapping major IT capital investments to the organization’s strategic goals and business line activities, as well as alignment with an agency’s target architecture.
11.4 LO 2: Discuss how to achieve buy-in from Line of Business owners and senior executives to maintain sufficient resources for an effective EA program.
11.4 LO 3: Describe how to resolve competing architectural principles to ensure best practices are maintained and architectural analysis remains useful in the decision making process.
11.4 LO 4: Describe how an integrated capital planning and EA process can improve mission performance in spite of continually changing IT and agency requirements.
11.4 LO 5: Describe the relationship between the practical implementation of Federal Enterprise Architecture Reference Models and an agency’s capital planning and investment control process. Include a discussion of related sections of OMB Circulars A-11 and A-130.
Competency 11.5 – Enterprise data management
11.5 LO 1: Describe the basic components of a data management program.
11.5 LO 2: Discuss the criticality of data interoperability and quality to enterprise-wide information exchange, and the role of data standardization in supporting interoperability.
11.5 LO 3: Describe current federal information exchange standards that are used and their role in intra- and inter-governmental sharing of information.
11.5 LO 4: Discuss how the data architecture can be used to prioritize the elements of a data management program.
11.5 LO 5: Describe the attributes of data quality and how architectural practices can improve data quality and application development within an agency.
11.5 LO 6: Compare and contrast the differences between data management and records management and how they may support one another.
Competency 11.6 – Performance measurement for enterprise architecture
11.6 LO 1: Define and describe performance goals and distinguish performance goals from performance standards.
11.6 LO 2: Discuss and describe the role of IT performance goals and standards with respect to the enterprise/program strategic plan, general goals and performance goals.
11.6 LO 3: Discuss how automated network, security, and application monitoring tools can be used for trend analysis and establishing performance indicators as part of a CIO’s “dashboard.” (See also 5.3 LO 2, 5.5 LO 3, and 5.6 LO 1.)