Fundamentals of Enterprise Architecture

Chapter 12. Assessment Framework

So far, this book has covered effective enterprise architecture, including key concepts, key objectives, and key principles. To apply this knowledge to your own organization, you first need to know where your organization currently is on its journey to establishing effective enterprise architecture, and for that you will conduct an assessment.

Maturity models are a fairly common type of assessment tool, made popular by capability maturity models (CMMs). Typically defining five levels—from initial to optimal—CMMs help simplify complex topics into a series of linear steps and benchmarks to assess performance. This process can help organizations understand the level that they are currently at, and what remains to get to where they want to be.

I have used maturity models to assess the current state of an organization, with an emphasis on process maturity and quality. In this experience, I did see some benefit to identifying the level that the organization was at and creating a roadmap to increase that level. I have even developed my own maturity models for things like platforms and have found benefit in determining what nonfunctional requirements (NFRs) needed to be in place for what level. In a similar vein, Figure 12-1 shows a high-level example of what an effective enterprise architecture maturity model could look like.

Using a step-like progression, this maturity model shows the clear difference from starting with nothing to ending with something ...