Artifacts, Activities, Benefits and Blockers: Exploring Enterprise Architecture Practice in Depth

Abstract

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a collection of artifacts describing an organization from an integrated business and IT perspective and intended to improve business and IT alignment. The purpose of this study is to identify benefits and blockers associated with specific EA-related activities and respective artifacts. Most existing studies discuss the benefits and problems of EA practice in general without relating them to specific activities constituting EA practice. This study is based on 18 interviews with architects and leverages the grounded theory approach. As a result of our analysis, we identify eight consistent activity areas constituting EA practice. Each activity area implies certain activities supported by some EA artifacts leading to specific benefits often impeded by some blockers. Our analysis indicates that EA practice includes many diverse activities usually, though not always, closely associated with specific types of EA artifacts. Moreover, benefits and blockers of EA practice are also very activity-specific.