Trends In Information Architecture Practices

Over the next several years, businesses will look to developments in technology to enable powerful new views into markets, populations, business processes, and supply chains. But will they be in a position to analyze data from what Forrester calls the "Smart Computing era" and integrate it with data from operational systems to dramatically improve decision-making? Forrester surveyed organizations to take the pulse of their information architecture (IA) practices and found that only a third have formal programs in place. These programs are typically run by the EA team, are enterprisewide in scope, and involve the collaboration of many IT and business-area roles. Have IA programs had an impact on their organizations? Most programs have shown some merit, and a few have had significant value, but for most, the best is yet to come — despite an average duration of more than two years.