Conceptual model of enterprise architecture management

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a description of an enterprise from an integrated business and IT perspective. Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is a management practice embracing all the management processes related to EA aiming to improve business and IT alignment. EAM is typically described as a sequential four-step process: (i) document the current state, (ii) describe the desired future state, (iii) develop the transition plan and (iv) implement the plan. This traditional four-step approach to EAM essentially defines the modern understanding of EA. Based on a literature review, this paper demonstrates that this four-step approach to EAM, though practiced by some companies, is inadequate as a model explaining the EAM phenomenon in general. As a substitute, this paper synthesizes the generic conceptual model of EAM providing a more realistic conceptualization of EAM describing it as a decentralized network of independent but interacting processes, artifacts and actors.