As you may know I'm researching the use of enterprise architecture (EA) as a management tool. The purpose of my research is to improve the effectiveness of EA. EA is not an end in itself but has various purposes. One of these purposes is decision support.
As part of my research I now created a survey to study the relationship between the maturity of an EA practice and the quality of IT investment decisions.
The IT investment decision is one of the five interrelated IT decisions that every enterprise must address and often the most visible and controversial: 'some projects will be approved, others are bounced' [Weill]. Not every IT investment is successful. The CHAOS Report indicates that in 2015 only 29% of projects were successful, i.e. on time, on budget, and with a satisfactory result. 19% of all projects failed and 52% were challenged [Standish group]. The high failure rates of projects indicate that the IT investment decision is difficult and risky.
Enterprise architecture (EA) is a mechanism to support IT decision-making [Op ’t Land]. EA is supposed to guide at moments of decision-making [Johnson, Jansen]. Various literature reviews indicate that EA leads to better decisions [Tamm, Boucharas]. One of the aims of EA is a reduced risk of future IT investments [Open Group]. There is a broad consensus that the EA discipline should guide and inform IT investment decisions [Blosch, Gotze, Buchanan, CIO-Council]. Despite these promises, there is little evidence that EA contributes to IT investment decisions.
Through this research we aim to investigate the relationship between the maturity of an EA practice and the quality of IT investment decisions. Based on the promises of EA one would expect at least a correlation between these variables: the more mature the EA practice, the higher the quality of IT investment decisions.
So, this is the point where the survey comes in. The target group of this survey consists of people who have to deal with EA, either as a creator such as architects, or as a stakeholder such as CIOs, portfolio managers, business managers, IT managers, information managers, analysts, or developers.
I kindly invite you to participate in the survey. Your contribution is essential and highly appreciated. To achieve reliable results, we need a high response.
The information you provide will only be used for this particular study and will be kept confidential. Answering all questions will take you about 20 minutes. The due date for submission is July 31st, 2017. At the end of the survey, you can leave your email address when you would like to receive the results of this study.
You can find the survey by clicking here.
Many thanks in advance for your contribution!
And by the way: how do you rate the influence of your EA practice on the quality of IT investment decisions in your organization?