IfG.CC - USA: Providing EA value

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Rapid advances in information technology continue to fuel expectations for on-demand access to government information and services. From town hall meetings and surveys, we have learned that citizens want a government that is accountable, convenient, easy to navigate and readily accessible. Meeting these expectations requires that we seamlessly integrate and manage the inherent complexity of our government services. We have found that enterprise architectures — formal descriptions of services, information, system components and technologies — can be effective tools to guide our efforts to integrate services and manage the inherent complexity of government functions.

The Office of Management and Budget and the CIO Council, along with industry and state government partners, have made great progress in defining the architecture models and processes that government officials can use to better understand citizen expectations and government business needs.

When officials wanted to improve agency services in the past, they changed the boxes on the organization chart. Today, by using the five reference models of the federal enterprise architecture and compatible agency architectures, officials can exploit the transparency of organizations' structures and processes to link services and organizations and improve service delivery.

In addition to guiding agency investments in IT, the federal enterprise architecture has helped identify opportunities to merge common functions and thereby eliminate redundancies and inefficiencies in how citizens, businesses and employees interact with and benefit from government information and services. For example, enterprise architectures are helping eliminate the need for businesses to submit virtually identical information to various federal, state and local agencies through multiple processes and forms.

Enterprise architectures' value is being further realized through the Bush administration's E-Government and the Lines of Business initiatives. Each line of business — such as grants, finances and human resources — has created architecture products that are supporting the development of governmentwide solution options.

One concept that has evolved from these efforts is the pursuit of centers of excellence. They would provide services and solutions for government stakeholders.

A major benefit of the federal enterprise architecture is that it allows the design of solutions that go beyond agency boundaries, even within a particular mission. And governmentwide, architectures are serving as the mechanism for disclosing and discovering crucial government services to meet mission and business needs.

Karen Evans, OMB's administrator for e-government and IT, describes architecture efforts as "providing the common language and a federal blueprint that will guide our efforts to streamline the delivery of services."

In essence, enterprise architecture is helping us meet the demand for immediate access to information and to provide a government that is accountable, convenient, easy to navigate and accessible. We applaud government and industry officials' important efforts to build and capitalize on enterprise architectures.

IfG.CC - Institute for eGovernment

USA: Providing EA value

IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment