Agility Loop

In my role in supporting the U.S. Government in the evolution of an Information Sharing Environment, I have had the opportunity to become more exposed to the machine that is Enterprise Architecture Frameworks.  Not the frameworks themselves necessarily, but the machine and engine around them.  And more and more I have to wonder, what is the true value of the frameworks and the associated artifacts it produces?

To give context, it is probably useful to understand my background.  I have "grown up" during my professional career architecting (little "a"), designing, and implementing information systems.  This has included upgrades of email infrastructures (I still hate you Groupwise) to enterprise wide white pages/attribute services.  However, when I say that I have architected these systems, I mean that I have worked with some VERY good people to actually plan the entire system from software to hardware to networks to user experiences.  However, during that time, the maintenance and creation of artifacts related to Enterprise Architecture (big "A") Frameworks was NEVER a priority.  Typically there was only enough time and money to actually design and implement the system (DO SOMETHING) rather than the creation of artifacts (PROCESS).

Now does that mean I was simply blind to the usefulness of those frameworks?  Perhaps.  But since then I have had more exposure to life in the SETA world and with agency CIOs where these same Enterprise Architectures get a lot more play.  A lot of money gets spent on maintaining the associated artifacts b/c they are required for certain programs (typically over a certain dollar amount).  There are relatively few people who are "certified" in Enterprise Architecture, and therefore those contractors are pricey. Anyhow, I don't have a good answer.  But I do know that creating documents simply for the sake of creating them is not best practice.  I think there seems to be a lot more value in concentrating on information architectures and knowing more about our data so we can effectively share it with our business partners.