Author: Saurabh Mittal, PhD

The EA is a tool for many individuals within an enterprise to include executives, managers, engineering staff, cost analysts, domain experts, and end users. Managers and executives use the EA to ensure investments and systems are linked to the mission and strategy for an organization. They also use the EA for planning and sequencing of acquisitions to make sure investments are effective and non-redundant. Engineers analyze the EA for redundancy, consistency, integration, interoperability, performance, adherence to standards, and quality of design. They also use it as the basis for the supporting system / infrastructure implementation. The EA provides visibility and control over investments while providing a shared vision of the future direction across the enterprise.

This knowledge area provides references and guidance on how to use the EA. It may cover case studies on the use of EA to inform business, management, engineering, operations, or financial decisions. It may also include tools and techniques for cost/benefit analysis, systems engineering design, operations improvement, or EA data visualization.

EA in practice implies the management of EA once it has been deployed. It consists of the following activities:

• Oversight: This involves reviewing, monitoring, and assessing an acquisition or engineering effort. Oversight is often performed by a third party that is not responsible for the design or implementation of the capability.
• Business and operations improvement: Often, the purpose of an EA is to enable improvement in business operations or information technology. This topic covers how to develop an EA to use it for analysis leading to improvement of business operations.
• Communication: An EA serves as an important communication tool to a range of stakeholders and interested parties. To business proponents and champions, the EA documents both current and desired operational processes and interactions.
• Acquisition: An EA is used in acquisition to provide the basis for justifying that an investment meets strategic goals and objectives.
• Transition: The EA provides a roadmap for guiding the enterprise through change to achieve desired business outcomes.
• Evolution: The EA provides a roadmap for evolution into the to-be and various methods and processes available to manage the evolution.