Affiliations: Information Technology Research Institute, P.O. Box
35, FIN-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland | Department of Computer Science and Information
Systems, P.O. Box 35, FIN-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Abstract: During the past few years, enterprise architectures (EA) have
garnered considerable attention from the community of information systems (IS)
practitioners and academics. It is suggested that EA is an approach for
controlling the complexity and constant changes in the business environment of
an organization, enabling a real alignment between the business vision,
business requirements and information systems. Managing enterprise
architectures is, however, a difficult and very complex task. Fortunately, a
few frameworks have been developed to help understanding this complicated
field: of these, the best known is the Zachman framework. In spite of its
popularity, it is, nonetheless, hard to find scientific studies on applying or
utilizing the Zachman framework. In this paper, we present a case study in
which the Zachman framework was applied in a method engineering effort, aiming
at improving method adoption in the context of small EA-oriented projects. In
order to discuss the usability of the Zachman framework as a mapping tool, the
development process and its outcome are described.