Enterprise Architecture and the PMA: Are You Missing a Key Component?
By Tom Homan
Engineer/Analyst, VISTA

Are you completely addressing the requirements for Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA)? If your agency has not considered the impact of your facilities and real property holdings on your federal enterprise architecture strategies, you may be missing a key component of this President’s Management Agenda (PMA) initiative.

In its latest milestone, on February 28, 2006, the White House required agencies to submit a self-assessment and submission of enterprise architecture (EA) transition strategy to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the annual EA assessment cycle.

OMB’s continuing annual, comprehensive assessment of agency EAs is detailed in the OMB Enterprise Assessment Framework 2.0, issued December 2005. In addition to annual assessments, OMB expects agencies to present quarterly progress reports on their success in meeting their EA transition strategy milestones, and to document any improvements that have come from using EA as a planning and management tool.

Annual assessments have been moved to February/March from the original September timeframe, to help inform the agency budgetary decision-making process. The results of the annual assessment process are indicated in the Current Status score for the PMA’s e-Government initiative.

The good news is, if you have not been able to completely detail the “artifacts” required for the EA assessment (as explained in the OMB Framework), you may be able to request an extension on your deadline.

VISTA has established an internal task force for Federal Enterprise Architecture compliance. The task force combines VISTA’s more than two decades’ of experience in collecting, validating and analyzing huge volumes of enterprise-level data with its understanding of how business practices and IT systems affect mission fulfillment.

In addition to its market leadership in real property and facility assessment, this technical group within VISTA can help any agency prepare a more comprehensive transition strategy for Federal Enterprise Architecture under the PMA’s e-Government initiative.

VISTA has demonstrated success in its approach to compliance with the PMA, including its work with Executive Order 13327 on Federal Real Property Asset Management. The company’s expertise in PMA support makes it uniquely qualified to assist in Federal Enterprise Architecture compliance, as well.

Tying architecture to business processes

According to the OMB Enterprise Assessment Framework, an agency’s EA must contain “an inventory of agency business processes, aligned to the FEA Business Reference Model (BRM), linked to layers of the agency EA and used to inform investment decision-making.”

An effective EA, according to OMB, must be “business-driven, requiring alignment between the IT architecture layers and business processes. Segment architectures must be developed for each agency line of business, including Services for Citizens, as well as Support Lines of Business.”

The OMB Framework defines five separate practice levels that tie business processes to business architecture. To be compliant beyond the most rudimentary practice level, an agency must understand the impact of its facilities on its business practices. This inter-relationship is critical to creating an enterprise architecture transition strategy.

It will be instructive to recap here the activities and artifacts demanded by OMB for the practice levels of business architecture:

Level 1 Practices

• Activities: Agency has identified business processes based on the FEA BRM including functions and sub-functions.
Artifacts: Baseline Business Architecture

Level 2 Practices

• Activities: Baseline business processes are linked to the layers of the agency’s baseline EA including performance, services, technology and data, as well as other business elements such as stakeholders, organizations, facilities, programs, investments and activities and security processes.
• Artifacts: Baseline Business Architecture

Level 3 Practices

• Activities: Target business processes are linked to the layers of the agency’s target EA including performance, services, technology and data, as well as other business elements such as stakeholders, organizations, facilities, programs, investments and activities and security processes.
  
  Segment architectures have been defined for all agency lines of business, including mission-critical business segments as well as administrative or common/shared lines of business. Target business architecture is aligned to the agency strategic plan and the IRM strategic plan.
• Artifacts: Target Business Architecture

Level 4 Practices

• Activities: Business target architecture informs transition planning and investment decision-making. Transition strategy demonstrates transformation from baseline to target business architecture. Selected investments demonstrate alignment to target business architecture.
• Artifacts: Target Business Architecture, Transition Strategy, CPIC Guide

Level 5 Practices

• Activities: Business architecture is monitored, measured, and updated on a regular basis.
• Artifacts: Updated Target Business Architecture and Transition Strategy.

Clearly, no agency can create an acceptable Enterprise Architecture transitional plan by OMB standards without understanding its business processes – particularly how those business processes are influenced and affected by the facilities it owns or leases, the functions of the people working in those facilities, and the security levels and secure infrastructures required for those functions. Without this, none of the “artifacts” required of the activities at each practice level can adequately be addressed.

Because an agency’s budget is tied to its status in complying with this part of the PMA, it is critical to be able to contextualize its capital requests with regard to these operational conditions.

Fortunately, OMB recognizes that agency EA artifacts may not be complete by the initial March assessment. Therefore, agencies may request a re-assessment by OMB, provided the request is made at the time they receive their initial annual assessment.

The re-assessment will not take place until at least 90 days after the initial assessment, but agencies can request that the re-assessment be performed even later in the year. The agency will have the opportunity to submit revised artifacts for review to demonstrate improvements in maturity since the initial assessment.

The Status score for e-Government within the PMA Scorecard will be updated accordingly based on the results of the re-assessment.

The VISTA Enterprise Architecture Task Force: A unique perspective

The historical approach to providing customer services often consisted of each service provider “re-inventing the wheel” of resources to provide the same or similar service of a “sister” agency, resulting in unnecessary increased capital expenditure.

The future approach provides services through a re-configuration of the enterprise architecture (EA) resulting in re-aligned business functions, operational cost savings, and higher quality of citizen services.

The desired product from this shift in enterprise philosophy is to improve the customer service model, and allow more self-serve citizen access. The by-product is a reduction in costs associated with redundant efforts.

In addition to OMB’s Federal Enterprise Architecture, VISTA’s Department of Defense clients are complying with the DoD Architecture Framework (DoDAF), and off-shoot frameworks like the Ministry of Defense Architecture Framework (MODAF) and NATO C3 AF (NAF) VISTA’s Enterprise Architecture Task Force was assembled to help current and prospective clients comply with their appropriate EA initiatives. The task force uses the combined management, information technology and real property consulting expertise of VISTA’s five key client teams:

• Facility Assessment Support
• Installation Status Report
• Real Property Asset Management
• Base Realignment and Closure
• Army Stationing Installation Plan

Individually, each of these teams brings a unique perspective to compliance with EA assessment and transition strategy requirements. The teams compare an organization’s mission and budgets against workforce trends and owned or leased property, to create solutions that cut costs, eliminate waste and improve workplace efficiency.

Collectively, the task force is led by seasoned VISTA analysts and is overseen by VISTA’s CEO through VISTA’s Technology Director.

The goal of the task force is to develop a repository of EA information and contact data and compile best practices for ensuring compliance with EA requirements. Its focus will be to analyze the various EA models to determine implementation strategies, operational advantages, economic benefits, and improved customer satisfaction.

The components of the Federal Enterprise Architecture are:

Performance Reference Model (PRM)

• Function-driven framework for describing business operations of the Federal government independent of the agencies that performs them

Service Component Reference Model (SRM)

• Business and performance-driven functional framework that classifies service components with respect to how they support business and/or performance objectives

Performance Reference Model (PRM)

• Standardized framework to measure the performance of major IT investments and their contribution to program performance

Data Reference Model (DRM)

• Model describing, at an aggregate level, the data and information that support program and business line operations

Technical Reference Model (TRM)

• Component-driven, technical framework used to identify the standards, specifications, and technologies that support and enable the delivery of service components and capabilities

Unless your agency is tying these various reference models back to facilities, missions, and business practices, you may be risking a lower Status grade on the PMA scorecard.

Tom Homan is an Engineer/Analyst for Herndon, VA-based VISTA. He can be reached at 703-601-0383, or tom.homan@vistatsi.com