Ecosystem Architecture Management in the Public Sector : From Problems to Solutions

Based on our research concerning enterprise architecture (EA) in the Finnish public sector, we discuss how EA concept and tool need to be developed to support government business ecosystem and organization design. Our research context indicates, beyond a federal government or a state one, that even a single municipality, like a city concern, can be perceived as an ecosystem of its sectoral domains, subsidiaries and such. We outline a vision of an overall ontology-based, shared EA repository for the-whole-of-government current state descriptions and specify the central design principles and functional requirements for such a system, illustrating some potential use cases of it. Based on inter…

Information Systems Students’ Impressions on Learning Modeling Enterprise Architectures

This Full Research Paper presents enterprise architecture (EA) modeling tools utilized in an educational context. EA is a well-known and a commonly used approach for organizational development aiming to improve the alignment of business operations and information technology. This high level design of information technology (IT) driven business operations lays the foundations on lower level technical activities such as the design and implementation of application programs and features, system boundary interfaces, database distribution and data pipes, and system recovery. Organizations’ architectures are made visible by creating EA artefacts, such as business process diagrams, data models and…

Envisioning Information Systems Support for Business Ecosystem Architecture Management in Public Sector

Based on our research concerning Finnish national enterprise architecture (EA) adoption in long run, we discuss here how EA concept and tool are to be developed to support business ecosystem and organization design. Our research context indicates, beyond a federal government or a state one, that even a single municipality, like a city concern, can be perceived as an ecosystem of its sectoral domains, subsidiaries etc. We outline a vision of an overall ontologybased, shared EA repository for the-whole-of-government current state descriptions. We specify the central design principles and functional requirements for such a system and illustrate some potential use cases of it. The study suggest…

Towards Ecosystemic Stance in Finnish Public Sector Enterprise Architecture

Governments and organizations in both public and private sector are operating in fields of ever-growing uncertainty and complexity. To study this complex environment, the concept of ecosystems has been suggested, interpreting organizations as intertwined systems among layers of evolving ecosystems. While offering possibilities, operating in an ecosystemic environment might prove to be challenging, and the change from traditional governance structures might be difficult to manage, requiring holistic yet detailed view. Enterprise Architecture (EA) has been an interest of academics and practitioners for few decades, offering one of the most prominent solutions to managing complex organizations…

Coping with Uncertainty in an Agile Systems Development Course

Uncertain and ambiguous environments are commonplace in information systems development (ISD) projects, and while different Agile frameworks welcome changes in organizational, technical, and business environments, the incurred uncertainty is known to negatively affect the development process and the quality of the final product. The effects of uncertainty on ISD projects have been studied in the past in real organizational contexts, but the effects of uncertainty on students in Agile systems development have received less attention from scholars. In this study, we measured the effects of experienced uncertainty on students’ performance in an Agile systems development course and how uncertai…

Examining Enterprise Architecture Definitions : Implications from Theory and Practice

This study explores the evolving discipline of Enterprise Architecture (EA) and the various definitions given to EA in literature and by practitioners. Due to the potential benefits, such as business and IT alignment, academics and practitioners have maintained an interest in enterprise architecture. EA has been developed outside of scientifically tested foundations, and is characterized by diversified views, seen in varied definitions given to the concept. Prior research has identified the need for conceptual strengthening as a necessity for the maturing the discipline. We contribute to this on-going discussion with a systematic literature review on the state-of-the-art of EA definitions a…

Method Framework for Developing Enterprise Architecture Security Principles

Organizations need to consider many facets of information security in their daily operations – among others, the rapidly increasing use of IT, emerging technologies and digitalization of organizations’ core resources provoke new threats that can be difficult to anticipate. It has been argued that the security and privacy considerations should be embedded in all the areas of organizational activities instead of only relying technical security mechanisms provided by the underlying systems and software. Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) offers a holistic approach for managing different dimensions of an organization, and can be conceived as a coherent and consistent set of principles tha…

SQL Education

Structured Query Language (SQL) skills are crucial in software engineering and computer science. However, teaching SQL effectively requires both pedagogical skill and considerable knowledge of the language. Educators and scholars have proposed numerous considerations for the betterment of SQL education, yet these considerations may be too numerous and scattered among different fora for educators to find and internalize, as no systematic mappings or literature reviews regarding SQL education have been conducted. The two main goals of this mapping study are to provide an overview of educational SQL research topics, research types, and publication fora, and to collect and propagate SQL teachi…

Government Enterprise Architecture Grid Adaptation in Finland

In government, support for strategic political steering, administrative and cross-sectoral development, and integration of processes and systems can be sought out of enterprise architecture (EA) planning. To facilitate this, a proper EA method covering essential government levels is needed. A constructive case study has been carried out to create an adaptation model of Finnish government EA (GEA) grid. The study builds on general principles of method adaptation and observations about GEA method engineering and its pilot adaptations in Finnish State Administration. The model presents systematic guidelines for situational GEA grid adaptation and reuse in Finnish State administration. The mode…

Performance Measurement in Scaled Agile Organizations

Challenges in Geographically Distributed Information System Development : A Case Study

Geographically distributed information system development (ISD) projects are more and more common, especially among organisations operating in global markets. Distributed ISD yields potential competitive advantages by developing new products near the target markets, utilizing global labour markets, and exposing the organisation to innovations, ideas and new paradigms. However, distributed ISD also presents challenges and problems which organisations must take into consideration. The pivotal challenge is usually communication. People working on the same project in different locations find it difficult to communicate due to lack of formal and informal face-to-face communication, different wor…

From problems to critical success factors of enterprise architecture adoption

Uncertainty in information system development: Causes, effects, and coping mechanisms

Information system development (ISD) projects are an ever-growing field of project management (PM) with their unique features, and project failures in ISD are relatively common. In the broader context of PM, uncertainty is a studied, yet mercurial phenomenon. By contrast, uncertainty in ISD projects has received relatively little attention from scholars, and PM literature has not systematically focused on uncertainty in ISD from a viewpoint other than that of project managers. In order to understand uncertainties in ISD projects, we need to first understand the causes behind them, their effects on everyday ISD work, and share coping mechanisms utilized among industry professionals. In the c…

Key Issues in EA-Implementation: Case Study of Two Finnish Government Agencies

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is getting more common also in public sector as a means to ensure ‘business’ and IT alignment. This study reports a follow-up and theme interviews of the key actors/informants in two EA projects in public administration offices during and half year after the projects were completed. The early experience shows that the process of establishing a government EA is a tedious and complicated process and this study considers the root causes. Three set of factors are found hindering EA’s potential to operate as a strategic alignment tool: lack of establishing proper EA governance, insufficient support for the development, and inadequate resources to do the former two.

Systems Approaches in the Enterprise Architecture Field of Research: A Systematic Literature Review

This study explores the use of the systems approaches (systems thinking and systems theories) as the theoretical underpinnings for Enterprise Architecture (EA) research. Both the academic and the practitioner communities have maintained an interest in EA due to its potential benefits, promising for the recent technological and business advances. EA as a research area is, however, characterized by diversified views depicted in different definitions of the concept, and no acknowledged common theoretical foundation. A number of prior studies have noticed this gap in the EA field of research, and called for a strengthening of the theory of EA. Variegated systems approaches have been suggested a…