In the early 1990s,  we identified an architecture as a critical success factor in allowing  organizations to effectively apply IT to meet mission goals. To help oversee and budget for federal IT investments, OMB began  developing the FEA in 2002, and has since issued versions of four of  its five major parts. What Is an Enterprise Architecture? Importance of Enterprise Architectures

The importance of enterprise architectures is a basic tenet of IT  management, and their effective use is a recognized hallmark of  successful public and private organizations. In February 2002, OMB established the Federal Enterprise  Architecture Program Management Office to develop the FEA,  which, according to OMB, is intended to facilitate governmentwide  improvement through cross-agency analysis and identification of  duplicative investments, gaps, and opportunities for collaboration,  interoperability, and integration within and across agency programs. Several laws and regulations have established requirements and  guidance for agencies’ management of architectures, beginning with  the Clinger-Cohen Act in 1996, which directs the CIOs of major  departments and agencies to develop, maintain, and facilitate the  implementation of IT architectures as a means of integrating agency  goals and business processes with IT. OMB Has Made Progress on FEA, but Questions Remain

In 2001, the lack of a federal enterprise architecture was cited by  OMB’s E-Government Task Force as a barrier to the success of the  administration’s e-government initiatives. OMB Has Cited a Number of Broad Purposes for the FEA

OMB has identified multiple purposes for the FEA. It also describes a process for  agencies to use to identify and define these measurement indicators. Since then, OMB initiated a governmentwide analysis of these five  lines of business to examine business and IT data and best practices  for each. Should the FEA be described as an enterprise architecture? Our reading of the four available reference models does not  demonstrate to us that this kind of content exists in the FEA, and  thus we believe that the FEA is more akin to a point-in-time  framework or classification scheme for federal government  operations. Is the expected relationship between agencies’ enterprise  architectures and the FEA clearly articulated? In particular, the percentage of agencies that had established at least  the foundation for effective enterprise architecture management  was virtually unchanged from where it was in 2001 (about 50  percent). Recently, OMB and the federal CIO Council  began to take steps that are consistent with many of our  recommendations. Of the 93 agencies  that we reported on in 2001 and 2003,   ●  22 agencies (24 percent) increased their maturity,  ●  24 agencies (26 percent) decreased their maturity, and   ●  47 agencies (51 percent) remained the same. The most often satisfied elements  included the following stage 2 elements:  ●  “Enterprise architecture plans call for describing both the ‘as-is’ and  the ‘to-be’ environments of the enterprise, as well as a sequencing  plan for transitioning from the ‘as-is’ to the ‘to-be’”(about 94  percent);  ●  “Enterprise architecture plans call for describing both the ‘as-is’ and  the ‘to-be’ environments in terms of business, performance,  information/data, application/service, and technology” (about 90  percent); and  ●  “Enterprise architecture plans call for business, performance,  information/data, application/service, and technology descriptions  to address security” (about 86 percent). Subsequently, it incorporated enterprise architecture  considerations into its oversight processes and issued guidance  directing that agency IT investments be based on agency enterprise  architectures. Accordingly, we  recommended that the OMB Director, in collaboration with the  federal CIO Council, use our maturity framework and the agency  baseline information provided in our February 2002 report as the  basis for helping agencies to advance the state of their respective  enterprise architecture development, implementation, and  maintenance efforts, and for measuring agency progress. In summary, enterprise architecture development and use in the  federal government are maturing, but they are not mature.
Why GAO Did This Study

The concept of enterprise architecture emerged in the mid- 1980s as a means for optimizing integration and interoperability across organizations. In the early 1990s, GAO research of successful public and private sector organizations led it to identify enterprise architecture as a critical success factor for agencies that are attempting to modernize their information technology (IT) environments. Since then, GAO has repeatedly identified the lack of an enterprise architecture as a key management weakness in major modernization programs at a number of federal agencies. It has also collaborated with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council to develop architecture guidance. In 2002, OMB began developing the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA), an initiative intended to guide and constrain federal agencies' enterprise architectures and IT investments. GAO was asked to testify on the status of the FEA and on the state of federal agencies' development and use of enterprise architectures.

What GAO Found

OMB has made progress on the FEA, but it remains very much a work in process and is still maturing. Its stated purposes include facilitating (1) the development of agencies' enterprise architectures, (2) the reuse of common IT components across agencies, and (3) the identification of opportunities for interagency collaboration in developing common IT solutions. Currently, the FEA is made up of five parts known as reference models, four of which have been issued in at least initial form. OMB reports that the FEA has been used to help identify potentially redundant agency IT investments, choose five lines of business (e.g., grants management) in which to pursue opportunities for agency collaboration, and begin to develop the architectural foundation for some of these business lines. GAO supports the FEA as a framework for achieving these ends, but raises questions whose answers are important to the its future. For example: Should the FEA be described as an enterprise architecture? GAO's reading of its content suggests that it is more akin to a classification scheme for government operations than a true enterprise architecture. Further, OMB requires agencies to "map" and "align" their architectures with the FEA. However, since these terms are not well-defined, GAO asks if the expected relationship between the FEA and agencies' architectures is clear enough. Like the FEA, agencies' enterprise architectures are still maturing. GAO recently reported (GAO-04-40) that agencies' management of architecture programs was generally not mature. Using its Enterprise Architecture Management Maturity Framework as a benchmark, GAO found little change in overall maturity between 2001 and 2003. Only 20 of 96 agencies examined had established at least the foundation for effective architecture management. Further, while 22 agencies increased in maturity since 2001, 24 agencies decreased and 47 agencies remained the same. Recently, OMB and the federal CIO Council initiated actions to advance agency architecture programs that are consistent with many of GAO's recommendations.