Quality Management Activities For Enterprise Architecture: Author: Tanja Ylimäki Date: 4.5.2006 Status: Final
Quality Management Activities For Enterprise Architecture: Author: Tanja Ylimäki Date: 4.5.2006 Status: Final
Quality Management Activities For Enterprise Architecture: Author: Tanja Ylimäki Date: 4.5.2006 Status: Final
ACTIVITIES FOR
ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE
EA studies have mainly focused on the development and modeling of EA, whereas the
quality and assessment aspects of EA have only recently gained attention. AISA
project aims at scrutinizing the field of quality management of architectures (both at
the enterprise and software level).
This report describes the work done in the second phase of the AISA project. The aim
of the phase was to determine quality management (QM) activities needed in
enterprise architecting. They were derived from general quality management, EA
management and EA development literature and discussed and reviewed in a
workshop participated by the representatives of the co-operating organizations of the
research project.
Based on the literature review and the workshop results QM activities for EA are
suggested to be divided into activities related to 1) the EA governance process, and 2)
the EA development life cycle. QM activities within the EA governance process deal
with e.g. the definition of quality policy, quality objectives, EA mission, vision and
objectives, establishment of EA governance structure, definition of communication
and documentation policies, quality measurement planning, and quality control and
assurance, as well as definition of the actual EA development methodology. QM
activities within the EA development life cycle deal with e.g. definition of the EA
stakeholders and EA requirements, actual EA modeling (from different points of
view), migration planning, implementation (through system development or other
types of projects), quality control and assurance in different phases of the life cycle,
and using the EA as a guide and a mentor, or as a tool for ICT related decision
making.
These activities describe a “vision” or the big picture of what activities could and
should be included in the EA governance and development processes in order to
enable gaining an EA of high quality rather than offering a ready-made practice-
oriented package for quality management of EA to be put into action. Depending on
the organization’s needs and its EA capability and maturity, relevant or priority QM
activities can be determined. Finally, the following conclusions were drawn:
- There is a need to shift from investment decisions driven EA development to EA
governance driven development.
- There is a need to increase the maturity of the EA governance and EA
development processes. The set of QM activities presented in the report can be
regarded as the highest level of EA maturity; if all the appropriate activities are
planned and conducted, the organization should have a more mature EA.
- There is a need to develop metrics for controlling, assessing, and evaluating e.g.
quality, maturity and performance of EA.
Contents
1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................... 1
2 QUALITY THINKING............................................................................................................................................ 2
2.1 QUALITY AND QUALITY MANAGEMENT .............................................................................................................. 2
2.2 MANAGING THE QUALITY OF ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE ................................................................................. 4
2.2.1 EA Maturity vs. EA Quality ........................................................................................................................ 4
2.2.2 Quality Management of EA......................................................................................................................... 5
3 QUALITY MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES WITHIN THE EA GOVERNANCE PROCESS......................... 8
3.1 QUALITY POLICY AND QUALITY OBJECTIVES ..................................................................................................... 8
3.2 DEFINITION OF ARCHITECTURAL STARTING POINTS ........................................................................................... 8
3.3 ESTABLISHING THE EA GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE ........................................................................................... 10
3.4 DEFINITION OF COMMUNICATION, DOCUMENTATION AND REVIEW POLICIES ................................................... 10
3.5 DEFINITION OF RISK AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES ....................................................................... 11
3.6 QUALITY MEASUREMENT PLANNING ................................................................................................................ 11
3.7 QUALITY CONTROL AND QUALITY ASSURANCE OF EA PROCESSES .................................................................. 12
3.8 RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................................................ 13
3.9 DEVELOPMENT OF EA METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................. 14
4 QUALITY MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES WITHIN THE EA DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE .............. 15
4.1 QM ACTIVITIES FOR EA INITIALIZATION – SCOPE, STAKEHOLDERS AND REQUIREMENTS ................................ 15
4.2 QM ACTIVITIES FOR EA DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................................................... 16
4.2.1 EA Modeling ............................................................................................................................................. 16
4.2.2 Migration Planning .................................................................................................................................. 16
4.2.3 Quality Control and Quality Assurance ................................................................................................... 17
4.3 QM ACTIVITIES FOR EA REALIZATION ............................................................................................................. 17
4.3.1 Implementing the Plans ............................................................................................................................ 18
4.3.2 Quality Control and Quality Assurance ................................................................................................... 18
4.4 QM ACTIVITIES FOR EA USAGE ........................................................................................................................ 19
4.4.1 Continuous Tracking for Changes ............................................................................................................ 19
4.4.2 Quality Control and Quality Assurance ................................................................................................... 19
4.5 QM ACTIVITIES FOR EA IMPROVEMENT ........................................................................................................... 20
5 CONCLUSIONS..................................................................................................................................................... 21
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................................... 23
Information Technology Research Institute QM Activities for EA 1
AISA Project
Tanja Ylimäki 4.5.2006
1 Introduction
During the past few years enterprise architectures (EA) have gained much attention of
ICT people. EA is suggested to be the approach for controlling the complexity and
constant changes of the business environment of an organization, enabling a true
alignment between the business vision, business requirements and information
systems.
EA studies have mainly focused on the development and modeling of EA, whereas the
quality and assessment aspects of EA have only recently gained attention. AISA
project aims at scrutinizing the field of quality management of architectures (both at
the enterprise and software level).
This report presents the results of the second phase of the AISA project’s first year.
The phase aimed at determining the quality management (QM) activities for EA. The
phase consisted of the following steps:
1. Identification of the activities related to quality management.
2. Identification of the activities related to enterprise architecture governance.
3. Integrating the quality management activities into the enterprise architecture
governance.
4. Workshop/focus group interview of the representatives of the user and
service provider organizations (Krueger and Casey 2000) to review, discuss,
and validate the QM activities for EA.
5. Analysis, consolidation and reporting of the results of the workshop/focus
group interview and the literature review.
The QM activities for software architecture were studied with the help of a similar
process, and the results are reported in a separate document (Hämäläinen 2005).
The remainder of this report is organized as follows. In the next section, we represent
the basic ideas of quality management both in general and in the field of EAs. The
sections three and four describe the results of the literature review and workshop, and
the last section concludes the report.
Information Technology Research Institute QM Activities for EA 2
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Tanja Ylimäki 4.5.2006
2 Quality Thinking
In this section the main concepts for quality and quality management both in general
and in the field of EA are briefly described.
Why we should care about quality? Dale (2003) presents various points why quality is
perceived to be important. Examples of these are as follows:
- quality is a primary buying argument for the ultimate customer
- quality is a major means of reducing costs
- quality is a major means for improving flexibility and responsiveness
- quality is a major means for reducing throughput time.
Juran (Juran and Godfrey 2000) introduces his “Trilogy of Quality Management”,
which defines that managing for quality makes extensive use of three managerial
processes: 1) quality planning, 2) quality control, and 3) quality improvement.
They are similar to the parallel processes long used to manage for finance:
- Financial planning which prepares the annual budget.
- Financial control which consists of evaluating actual financial performance.
- Financial improvement which aims to improve financial results; e.g. cost-
reduction projects, new facilities to improve productivity, new product
development to increase sales, acquisitions, or joint ventures.
Quality planning can be defined as a “structured process for developing products
(both goods and services) that ensures that customer needs are met by the final result.
The tools and methods of quality planning are incorporated along with the
technological tools for the particular product being developed and delivered” (Juran
and Godfrey 2000).
Quality planning has to deal with the quality gaps depicted in Figure 1 by providing
processes, methods, tools and techniques for closing each of the component gaps and
thereby ensuring that the final quality gap is at a minimum.
Understanding gap
Understanding the needs
Design gap
Design of product
Quality
gap Process gap
Capability to deliver design
Operations gap
Actual delivery
Perception gap
Figure 1. The quality planning deals with the quality gaps (Juran and Godfrey 2000).
Dale (1994, 21) describes the TQM to evolve through four stages:
- Inspection: Activities such as measuring, examining, testing, gauging one or
more characteristics of a product or service and comparing these with specified
requirements to determine conformity.
- Quality control: The operational techniques and activities that are used to fulfill
requirements for quality.
- Quality assurance: All those planned and systematic actions necessary to
provide adequate confidence that a product or service will satisfy given
requirements for quality.
- Total quality management is the fourth and the highest level and it involves the
application of quality management principles to all aspects of the business,
including customers and suppliers.
Quality management is not a separate part of the organization, it is more or less
integrated into the management system of an organization to enable systematic
deployment of the management’s strategies and declarations of will throughout the
organization (Lecklin 2002). Quality management also includes and deals with the
organizational parts, responsibilities, procedures, processes and resources needed to
improve quality (Lillrank 1998).
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AISA Project
Tanja Ylimäki 4.5.2006
During the previous step of the AISA project we defined the following preliminary
definition for the quality of EA (based on Lecklin 2002; Dale 2003): an Enterprise
Architecture has a good quality if it conforms to the agreed and fully understood
business requirements, fits for the purpose (which is to gain business value through
EA), and satisfies the various stakeholder groups’ (e.g. the top management, IT
management, architects, developers) expectations in a cost-effective way and
understands their current needs as well as their future requirements. Cost-
effectiveness is a multifaceted issue, though. It may refer, for example, to the
investment costs or the life cycle costs of information systems, depending on the
decision that is usually made by the top management.
The quality of EA is, however, more than merely the quality of the implemented EA
indicating that it is successfully used (e.g. EA conformant information systems are
being developed and used to support the business operations). It may also refer to the
quality of EA artifacts and documentation, the quality of the EA development process,
or the quality of EA governance (process).
Why we should strive for an EA of high quality? Generally, EA provides e.g. a means
of reducing information systems investment costs, life-cycle costs or throughput time,
or a means of eliminating redundancy of, for example, systems and information. It
also is an important means for improving flexibility and responsiveness of the
business providing tools to manage the complexity of the business, as well as the
complexity of the systems. More specifically, if the EA has also high quality these
benefits are more likely to be reached.
Maturity as a word means “ripeness” and it conveys the notion of development from
some initial state to some more advanced state (Fraser, Moultrie et al. 2002). It also
indicates that there may be several intermediate states on the way to the maturity.
Similarly, quality improvement evolves step by step. In this report, the maturity
models are considered as one means or approach of advancing the quality of EA,
while the EA quality management may encompass a wider range of activities. Quality
models also provide at least initial quality measurement systems for EA.
Business
Management (e.g.strategy
management, strategy execution)
IT Governance,
Quality Enterprise IT delivery
Management Architecture & support
Systems
Development
(IT implementation)
Another view is presented in Figure 3. The ultimate aim of the TQM is to integrate
quality management into the business management, the every day operations of the
enterprise. The degree of this integration is dependent e.g. on the line of business or
the size of the organization. In the manufacturing organizations there may be a
separate department or team responsible for the quality management whereas in the
information-centric businesses quality issues may be more integrated with the
business management. The EA governance also aims at being integrated into the
business management, as well as into the quality management to ensure reaching an
EA of high quality which is effectively utilized in an organization.
Information Technology Research Institute QM Activities for EA 6
AISA Project
Tanja Ylimäki 4.5.2006
EA
Quality Governance/
Management Management
EA Quality Aspect:
Integrating (some) quality management (tasks)
into EA governance
Figure 3. The management triangle: integration is needed e.g. between the quality
management, enterprise architecture and business management.
EA
EAGovernance/
Governance/EA
EA(Program)
(Program)Management
Management
Example of
development
Cycle; incremental
& iterative
Within this context we suggest that the QM activities for EA are integrated into
1. the EA governance process, and
2. the EA development life cycle.
Quality management of the EA artifacts is included in the QM activities that are
integrated into the EA development life cycle. In the next sections we will discuss the
two levels of EA quality management in more detail.
EA Specification
time
Quality objectives can be defined as the measurable goals for quality efforts (Lecklin
2002). For example, the share of the satisfied customer to be over 70 %, or the total
time spent on orders (from receiving an order to the delivery of goods or service) not
exceeding 7 days are strategic quality objectives (Lecklin 2002).
Quality management tasks related to the quality policy and quality objectives are as
follows:
- Define the quality policy (Lecklin 2002; Kartha 2004) for EA or follow the
existing quality policy of the organization and its guidelines.
- Define the measurable quality objectives (Lecklin 2002; Kartha 2004) for EA
based on e.g. the business objectives (Chrissis, Konrad et al. 2003) or strategic
quality objectives of an organization (Lecklin 2002). The quality objectives may
relate e.g. to
o the EA governance process,
o the EA development process and the actual method used,
o the EA specification consisting of the artifacts produced during the
development process, and
o the implemented EA, the EA conformant information systems
supporting the business operations that are used in the organization.
- Identify the key EA stakeholders (adapted from Juran and Godfrey 2000; Kartha
2004) to be able to involve them in the EA approach and development as early as
possible in order to reach their commitment (see e.g. IAC 2005). It should be
considered whether also their primary needs should be charted on a rough level at
this point.
- Define vision, mission, objectives, principles and scope for EA (Grossman and
Sargent 1999; The Open Group 2002; IAC 2005). EA objectives can be divided
into long, middle-long, and short term objectives (van der Raadt, Hoorn et al.
2005). An example of a short term goal is communicating the added value of
Information Technology Research Institute QM Activities for EA 9
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Tanja Ylimäki 4.5.2006
architecture to senior and middle management. Improving the quality and structure
of information systems and infrastructure is typically a long-term goal. It should be
noticed that when the short-term goals are emphasized, middle-long and long term
goals will be influenced negatively (van der Raadt, Hoorn et al. 2005).
Furthermore, the problem of prioritization has to be dealt with. As van der Raadt et
al. (2005) put it: “Clearly assigning priority to either the quality of architecture
products or the availability of resources, such as time and money, may prevent
many problems. Architects prioritize quality because they are responsible for the
quality of a design. Management, however, is more likely to prioritize the use of
resources because they are responsible for finishing projects within time and
budget. In practice this difference in responsibilities and prioritizing often results in
tension between the two groups. The choice of prioritizing quality has a negative
correlation with the use of time and money, and vice versa.”
It is also important to determine the intended use of the architecture, which can be
business process reengineering, systems acquisition, system-of-systems migration
or integration, user training, interoperability evaluation, or any other intent (CIO
Council 2001). In the AISA Workshop it was brought up that architecture may also
be the tool to reveal issues the organization is skating around, issues that are
ignored or unable to be discussed and solved. Hence, the purpose of the
architecture, as well as, vision, mission, scope etc. are closely tied to the
organization’s strategic plans, and they should be compliant with the business
vision, mission, strategies and objectives. Architecture principles can be defined as
the rules that govern the architecture process, affecting the development,
maintenance and use of the EA (The Open Group 2002). Additionally, in the AISA
Workshop it was pointed out that architecture visions describe the characteristics of
an ideal architecture. In practice, however, many constraints (time, money, skills
etc.) exist and the ideal architecture turns out to be “the realistic architecture”, the
best one developed with the restricted resources.
- Establish and maintain the organizational policy for planning and performing the
EA governance process (adapted from Chrissis, Konrad et al. 2003). This activity
can be integrated into the definition of the architecture principles described above.
- Define and establish the EA governance structure (CIO Council 2001; The Open
Group 2002; Curran 2005; IAC 2005; van der Raadt, Hoorn et al. 2005) including
at least the processes, activities, tasks, roles, responsibilities, and authorizations
needed. Organizational structure may consist of e.g. a governance board, an
architecture board or a program management office.
In the next subsections we suggest some of the processes or activities that are needed
in successful EA governance.
4.2.1 EA Modeling
EA modeling deals with the following activities:
- Model the current architecture (the as-is architecture) describing the current state of
an enterprise’s architecture (Armour, Kaisler et al. 1999b; CIO Council 2001;
GAO 2003). Model the perspectives defined in the architecture framework, e.g.
business architecture, information architecture, systems architecture and
technology architecture (see e.g. The Open Group 2002).
- Develop the future architectures (the to-be architecture) describing the future state
or the “to be built” state of the enterprise’s architecture within the context of the
strategic direction (Armour, Kaisler et al. 1999b; CIO Council 2001; GAO 2003).
- Ensure traceability between the as-is and the to-be state. “The process of tracing
differences between the current and the future states is maybe the most difficult
steps in the entire EA life-cycle process” (IAC 2005).
- Document the architectural decisions including justifications of the decisions
made.
While modeling the EA, all the defined documentation and communications policies
and strategies should be followed in order to enable reaching a consensus on the EA,
as well as an EA specification of high quality, or at least of acceptable quality.
Issues to evaluate and assess depend on what is defined in the evaluation plan. The
tasks needed in quality control and assurance are as follows:
- Refine or update the evaluation plan (e.g. what, when, how, who, and metrics) if
needed.
- See that the quality policies and objectives are met by conducting the steps defined
in the evaluation plan. The following general steps of quality control and assurance
may be exploited (adapted from Juran and Godfrey 2000; Chrissis, Konrad et al.
2003)
o Evaluate the performance of the current EA, the EA artifacts, the
customer satisfaction etc. using the defined metrics.
o Compare performance with the (quality) goals or requirements defined
for EA artifacts, customer satisfaction etc.
o Take action on the difference, e.g. modify the artifacts.
o Provide constructive feedback to facilitate continuous improvement
(Stylianou and Kumar 2000).
o Document the evaluation and the actions taken in an evaluation report.
- Implement the plans and validate transfer to operations (adapted from Juran and
Godfrey 2000):
o Follow the migration plan and take appropriate actions.
o Refine or update the migration plan if needed.
o Conduct (system) development project(s) to move closer to the to-be
architecture (CIO Council 2001).
o Ensure the compliance of an individual development project to the EA
(The Open Group 2002). This was highlighted also in the AISA
Workshop discussion. Furthermore, CIO Council (2001) suggests that
an enforcement policy may be defined to provide the standards and
process for determining the compliance of systems or projects with the
EA and procedures for resolving the issues of non-compliance. A
project’s technical and schedule compliance is typically assessed in
terms of how it conforms to the content, intent, and direction set by the
EA (CIO Council 2001).
- Provide support for the project team(s) (adapted from Juran and Godfrey 2000),
including e.g. the following tasks:
o Review the team progress,
o Identify and help any problems,
o Coordinate the related projects, and
o Communicate the project results to the appropriate stakeholders.
5 Conclusions
In this report we presented a wide range of theoretical quality management activities
for enterprise architecture. They were derived from general quality management, EA
management and development literature and discussed and reviewed in a workshop
participated by the representatives of the co-operating organizations of the project.
Even though the study is preliminary and the results should be generalized with care,
some conclusions can be drawn:
Another point made in the AISA Workshop was the fact that extensive QM processes
can be developed which guide or even force to an ideal output and performance, but
which do not work in practice. Therefore, the QM processes need to be streamlined
and optimized to be as light as possible and easy to be adopted by an organization.
Only then the activities can be conducted effectively and the top management’s
acceptance and commitment as well as the organizational buy-in can be gained.
In the previous phase of the AISA project the potential critical success factors (CSF)
for EA were studied (Ylimäki 2005). It can be noticed that the EA quality
management activities focus to the same issues than the CSFs for EA (Figure 6).
Hence, the QM activities presented in this report together with the CSFs for EA could
be integrated into an EA maturity model for business organizations.
Communication &
Commitment
Common Language
Scoping &
Purpose
Governance
Business Driven
Development EA Approach
Methodology Success &
Quality
Assessment/
Tool
Evaluation
Support
There is a need to develop metrics for controlling, assessing and evaluating e.g.
the quality, maturity and performance of EA. Development of appropriate metrics
and best practices for evaluation and assessment has to deal with the questions like
what the issues that will be measured and evaluated are, how the evaluation results are
used and by whom. In the AISA Workshop it was suggested that descriptive metrics
should be developed. The problem of descriptive metrics is that different
interpretations of the evaluation results may exist. Typically, also the business
management expects to have numeric metrics to base their decisions on. Therefore,
both metrics will be needed.
These issues will be clarified in the following steps of the AISA Project starting with
the further description of the current state and the development needs of the
architecture quality management in the participating organizations.
Information Technology Research Institute QM Activities for EA 23
AISA Project
Tanja Ylimäki 4.5.2006
References