Agile Enterprise Architecture by Leveraging Use Cases

Abstract

Despite benefits Enterprise Architecture (EA) has brought, EA has also been challenged due to its complexity, heavy workload demands, and poor user acceptance. Researchers and practitioners proposed to use EA in an agile and "business outcome-driven" way. This means that EA should not primarily be developed and used according to a pre-defined framework. Instead, EA should be developed and used for specific business purposes and by means of concrete deliverables. By doing so, a more effective and efficient way of EA application could be enabled. However, there is no common agreement on what types of business goals can be expected to be achieved by using EA (The What) and how to achieve these goals through EA solutions (The How). To address these issues, we analysed the information provided by leading EA tool vendors available on their websites to get inspiration. The results showed that Use Cases (UCs) are used generally to motivate potential EA users by focusing on specific business issues. Then, EA solutions to address such business requirements or challenges are scoped and derived accordingly. We expect relevant findings could bring inspiration to agile EA engineering, change the EA “heavy-weight” reputation, and improve the application of EA even among its sceptics.