Organizational Transformation: A Framework for Assessing and Improving Enterprise Architecture Management (Version 2.0) (Supersedes GAO-03-584G)

This publication supersedes GAO-03-584G Information Technology: A Framework for Assessing and Improving Enterprise Architecture Management (Version 1.1), April 2003, and Information Technology: A Practical Guide to Federal Enterprise Architecture, Version 1.0, February 2001.

Effective use of an enterprise architecture (EA) is a hallmark of successful organizations and an essential means to achieving a desired end: having operations and technology environments that maximize institutional mission performance and outcomes. Among other things, this includes realizing cost savings through consolidation and reuse of shared services and elimination of antiquated and redundant mission operations, enhancing information sharing through data standardization and system integration, and optimizing service delivery through streamlining and normalization of business processes and mission operations. Not using an EA can result in organizational operations and supporting technology infrastructures and systems that are duplicative, poorly integrated, unnecessarily costly to maintain and interface, and unable to respond quickly to shifting environmental factors. To assist organizations in successfully developing, maintaining, and using an EA, GAO is issuing this major update to its Enterprise Architecture Management Maturity Framework. Its purpose is to provide a flexible benchmark against which to plan for and measure EA program maturity. To develop the update, GAO solicited comments from 27 federal departments and agencies, as well as representatives from the private sector, state governments, and academia, and it leveraged its prior experience in applying the framework.