The problem

Enterprise Architectures (EAs) contain all the internal and external aspects of your organization, including all the "Ws", like what you do, why you do it, how you do it, who you need to do it, etc.  EAs not only represent your current state but also allow you to visualize a desirable future and communicate to others the rationale for change.

Over the years, we found that companies usually face issues like:  

• Much time is spent re-discovering current state instead of working on addressing their issues.

• Documentation is outdated soon after projects are over.

• Structured information is disconnected from diagrams.

• Changes do not propagate through all the disconnected documents.

• Artifacts show business viewpoints rather poorly. 

• Many important links among People, Process and Technology are not evident.

• It is difficult to have a holistic view of the characteristics and life cycle status of all the moving parts required to run the organization.

• It is difficult to visualize the full impact of change, which underestimates risks and complexity of projects, and usually leads to overruns in cost and time, or in harsh reductions in scope to meet budgets.  

Our approach

Many organizations came to the realization that the only way to address these problems is to implement and maintain an Enterprise Architecture Repository (EAR), to centrally manage the information about their organizations.

They quickly become aware that doing this requires heavy lifting in four areas: 

1. Defining and naming the entities, relationships, and attributes (usually called the "EAR metamodel") and agreeing on the required classifiers and their valid options. 

2. Capturing, cleansing, normalizing, and summarizing large amounts of information, to be able to present calls to action using perspectives that are relevant to many different audiences.  

3. Creating and embedding solid processes to maintain the currency of the EAR, recognizing that organizations are in constant evolution and that decisions need relatively current information. 

4. Accepting that it is not possible to capture and maintain everything from day one, that the footprint of the EAR will be expanded, and that its content details will increase over time. 

Libra’s unique Enterprise Architecture Repository (EAR) Managed Services is a unique combination of proven methodologies, experienced talent, and practical tools that effectively address these four requirements.