Enterprise architecture assessment

Enterprise architecture assessment helps practitioners and business representatives engaged in planning to understand the risk, comparative cost of services, information, applications and technologies, and their potential to deliver future benefit within the current environment.

Based on results of assessments, corrective actions can be proposed that can be carried forward to the planning activities with the business representatives. Some assessments are also required for whole-of-government reporting purposes.

Each assessment examines business, user, functional or technical aspects of a service, information asset, application or technology to measure the potential to deliver current and future benefit and satisfy business needs. Assessment identifies the value to the organisation, risk, maintainability and performance.

Audience

A practitioner in the context of this guideline can include one or more of the following roles:

• Enterprise architects
• Digital and ICT strategic planners
• Agency and service strategic planners
• Business analysts.

Before conducting any assessment activities, practitioners should engage with the business planning unit, the enterprise architecture unit or other business stakeholders within the organisation to identify which elements relevant to the planning engagement may have already been assessed. For example, the organisation may have already identified applications and technologies considered to be high risk.

Assessments can be modified to suit specific agency requirements if the criteria assessed are relevant to both the elements being assessed, and the nature of the assessment. Assessments should also be applied consistently across the same elements in a portfolio.

It may not be possible to effectively assess all the elements as part of the planning engagement. The practitioner may need to negotiate the scope of the assessments conducted with the planning sponsor. Recommended options include:

• reduce the scope of assessments conducted (e.g. assess only the business impact and condition)
• reduce the scope elements assessed (it may be sufficient to assess only applications and technologies)
• reduce the scope of elements assessed based on characteristic of that element (e.g. assess only applications and technologies above $X annual cost of operation or assess only applications where the business impact of the service supported is Extreme or High).

The Queensland Government ICT Profiling standard further outlines the minimum requirements for the assessment of information, applications and technology.

Assessments should only be conducted once the practitioner is satisfied all relevant elements have been gathered and documented in the relevant registers including:

• Business service register
• Business process register
• Information assets and services register
• Application assets and services register
• Technology assets and services register.

It’s important to note assessments are not substitutes for formal risk assessments and the results may require further investigation.

Best practice for assessments

Assessments are best conducted using surveys, interviews or workshops with representatives from the business as well as application and information asset experts and support staff.

The assessment of value to the organisation, risk, maintainability and performance are determined through scoring information assets, applications and technologies against criteria related to business impact, future business value and condition.

Using a grid model

Assessments are used to create grid models for planning purposes. Depending on where elements within a layer of an enterprise architecture fall on a grid model, specific strategies and actions can be considered during planning regarding short and longer-term management of those elements.

This provides a consistent set of criteria against which the business can score and compare the business, user, functional or technical aspects of a service, information, application or technology asset or service.

The assessment of value to the organisation, risk, maintainability and performance are determined through scoring information assets, applications and technologies against criteria relating to business impact, future business value and condition. The table below defines each assessment in more detail.

Definition of Business impact, Future business value and Condition

The assessments of business impact, future business value and condition are made using a similar approach, scoring a number of dimensions relevant to business impact, future business value and condition on a simple 0-5 rating scale.

The results are averaged to produce a final 0-5 score. This approach is less subjective than simply asking a business or technical representative to rate an element out of 5, but can still be completed relatively quickly. The dimensions used and the rating guidelines are also designed to be readily understood by both technical and business people.

In most cases, it is best to have business representatives rate some dimensions, and technical people rate others.

The tables below describes the assessment criteria for each of the service information asset, application and technology assessments.

Assessment criteria

As part of the Queensland Government Enterprise Architecture (QGEA) requirements, it is important the criteria are assessed in the descending order as they appear below:

1. Business assessment
2. Information assessment
3. Application assets and services assessment
4. Technology assets and services assessment

Business assessment criteria

Information assessment criteria

Technology assets and services assessment criteria

Adding the scalable cost assessment dimension allows practitioners to use a simple means of turning a cost of operation dollar amount into a rating from 0 to 5. By indicating a high annual estimated cost of operation unique to the organisation that represents a scaled cost of (5), it is possible to calculate ranges of values that would result in a scaled cost rating of between (1) and (5). In the example below, the high annual estimated cost of operation for the organisation would be $250,000

Example of scaled cost ranges

Assessing the age of assets and services and when they are due for replacement or renewal is also useful analysis. This is particularly useful when assessing application and technology assets and services.

If both the estimated replacement or renewal date and the estimated cost of replacement or renewal have been captured, simple graphs can be produced of the estimated number of elements to be replaced or renewed within specified periods of time (e.g. 1 year, 3 years and 5 years).

In many cases information assets, applications and technologies may already be past the estimated replacement date. It is also possible to graph how long assets are being used beyond their expected replacement date and whether this may represent a risk to the agency.

Grid models can be applied to analyse your assessment and determine what actions the agency should take in relation to its ICT portfolios. Grid models are a visual method for understanding the current and future positioning of services, information assets, applications and technologies. They are an effective method of conveying the current state of services, information, applications and technologies at commencement of digital and ICT planning workshops.

Types of grid models

Three different grid models can be used to assess the current and future position of ICT assets in relation to the rest of the portfolio.  Each grid model captures information about an agency’s ICT assets and services according to a combination of characteristics of business impact, future business value, technical condition and scaled cost. These models are:

• Business exposure (Business impact versus technical condition)
• Performance (Business impact versus scaled cost of operation)
• Attractiveness (Future business value versus technical condition).

Refer to ICT Profiling templates for grid model samples and the ICT planning methodology workbook to help plan your own, and learn more about each model type below.

Business exposure model

The Business exposure grid model provides an indication of the current risk and performance of a service, information asset, application or technology.

Performance model

The Performance grid model assesses the performance of assets and services relative to other assets and services in the same portfolio based on the importance to the business (business impact) versus the scaled total cost of delivering and maintaining the asset or service. This in turn gives an indication of the ‘reasonableness’ of the overall cost.

Attractiveness model

The Attractiveness grid model assesses the contribution the asset or service will make to the strategic priorities and objectives of the organisation by comparing the capability of the element to deliver future benefits and business changes against its current condition.

Interpreting grid models

Grid models can help practitioners determine appropriate strategies regarding the organisation’s current state that can be carried forward to the planning engagement. Practitioners can use grid models to apply an objective process to plan the future evolution of digital and ICT assets and services based on recommended management strategies for optimising the information assets, applications and technology portfolios.

Analysis and determination of the management strategies from the grid models should be conducted in conjunction with the replacement and renewal of current agency information as and work plan. This will identify any actions or initiatives that are either proposed, planned or currently underway that may deliver on the recommendations highlighted in the grid models.

Once the assessment, grid models and analysis activities are complete, the results can be presented to the planning sponsor as well as the business representatives as part of the planning workshops conducted during the planning engagement.

It may be appropriate to suggest recommended management strategies that should be considered when developing the digital or ICT strategy or plan document.

Alternatively, some recommendations may need to be carried forward into operational planning activities.