Government Accountability Office

Organizational Tranformation: Enterprise Architecture Value Needs to Be Measured and Reported Government Accountability Office

According to OMB, the federal executive branch plans to spend at least $75 billion on information technology (IT) investments in fiscal year 2012. In response to a statute which mandates that GAO identify duplicative activities within federal agencies, GAO previously identified enterprise architecture as a mechanism for reducing duplication and overlap in investments. An architecture is a ?blueprint? that describes how an organization operates in terms of business processes and technology, how it intends to operate in the future, and how it plans to transition to the future state. Knowing whether architecture outcomes are being achieved requires defining the architecture?s goals, establishing a method and metrics to measure architecture outcomes, and periodically measuring and reporting these outcomes. To assess agencies? use of architecture as a mechanism for reducing duplication and overlap, GAO committed to determine the extent to which agencies are measuring and reporting architecture outcomes and benefits. To do this, GAO reviewed relevant documentation from 27 major federal agencies, reviewed the results of a GAO survey on the benefits of using architecture, and interviewed agency officials.