Why Doesn't The Federal Enterprise Architecture Work?

“Look at all the efforts that have been launched under the idea of architecture and all the money that has been spent under the umbrella of architecture that has all resulted in unusable shelfware.”

– Paul Brubaker, co- author of the Clinger-Cohen Act, 2005

---

For those who want a quick way to review my report’s findings, a new PowerPoint summary has been added; just click the link on the upper left. And please feel free to distribute to others who may be interested.

---

Throughout the FEA’s lifetime, concerns have often been raised that there is “something wrong” with the program.  Several attempts to fix what was wrong were made, but never with success.  Two significant examples include:

• In a series of EA assessment reports the GAO raised concerns and asked questions that showed widespread confusion existed about many of the FEA concepts and definitions.  These questions included a completely surprising — even shocking — one: “Should the FEA be described as enterprise architecture?”The GAO raised these important questions but didn’t follow through to get them answered.

• The Chief Architects Forum also recognized this widespread confusion, and in 2005 began development of the Federal Enterprise Architecture Glossary of Terms to develop a uniform understanding of commonly used terms among government architecture practitioners.  The Glossary was little used and did nothing to improve the results of either agency EA programs or the FEA PMO.

That there is “something wrong” with the FEA program is also made evident by a long record of observable failures.  Among them:

• Five failed and wasteful efforts by the FEA PMO to collect EA data (FEAMS, Core.gov, FTF, EASR, FSAM — many people don’t know that the last two had data models to collect data)

• Compliance reporting that completely failed to reveal obvious problems

• Backsliding and multiple re-starts at many federal agencies (a series of GAO reports showed that agencies often regressed to lower EA maturities)

• Many agency EA programs that failed to provide anything of value

• The inability of the FEA PMO even to meet its obvious primary objective, the creation of a federal-wide Enterprise Architecture!

There is indeed something wrong with the Federal Enterprise Architecture program: most of it has never worked.

This web site has been established to communicate the findings of a thorough and in-depth analysis that I performed to determine why the FEA wasn’t working, and to identify the root causes of its failure.  My findings are documented in a report titled “Why Doesn’t the Federal Enterprise Architecture Work?” (“An Examination Why the Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Has Not Delivered the Expected Results and What Can be Done About It”)

This site allows visitors to read the report online or to download the entire report if desired. (See “Download Report” at upper left.)  As stated on that page, I give express permission for free usage of all or portions of this document, provided proper acknowledgment is given.

Particularly in light of the current situation with the federal Enterprise Architecture program – its future existence appears to be in jeopardy – I have no doubt that the findings of this report can help fix what is wrong with the federal EA program.

But it can only do this if it is disseminated to enough federal EA practitioners and other interested stakeholders who will: first, take the time to read and understand why the federal EA hasn’t worked, and second, help form a consensus that a completely new way of thinking about enterprise architecture will be needed before the federal EA can be fixed.

Stanley Gaver

Technology Matters, Inc.

January 2011

Next: PREFACE >>