Best Practice Report

Assessing The Fitness Of Your Architecture

Forrester's Architecture Assessment Framework Measures Five Dimensions Of Fitness

October 3rd, 2013
Gordon Barnett, Principal Analyst
Gordon Barnett Principal Analyst
With contributors:
Alex Cullen , Abigail Komlenic

Summary

Firms are investing more in enterprise architecture to drive business performance. In our discussions with enterprise architecture (EA) practitioners, however, we've found that they commonly perceive enterprise architecture as an intangible that they can't assess for fitness. EA leaders find it easier to concern themselves with the maturity of their EA practice, its processes, and artifacts, rather than the architecture. This begs the question, how do you know your target architecture is fit for purpose and will enable your firm to realize its strategy? There is no industry best practice framework for assessing a firm's architecture. This report describes an architecture assessment scorecard that concentrates on five dimensions of "fitness for purpose." Using the assessment findings, architects can better provide EA stakeholders with the confidence that the defined architecture will support the organization's success.

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