EA Program Charge
Enterprise Architecture’s focus is on the UW’s broad, long-term interests. At the direction of the VP for UW-IT and CIO of UW, Enterprise Architecture (EA) helps stakeholders maximize the architectural value of their services, solutions, data, processes, or organizations on behalf of the UW in an environment of constant change. The EA team is accountable to the broad, long-term interests of the UW and advocates for decisions that make the most of the UW’s investments. The Director of EA will arbitrate architectural tradeoffs where they occur.
Context
- The UW operates a complex set of services, solutions, data, and processes to enable its multifaceted mission in a rapidly changing environment. This complexity creates opportunities and risks that need to be identified and evaluated.
- In UW-IT and across the UW, groups seek to make better decisions that balance trade-offs while increasing architectural value — including effectiveness, efficiency, adaptability, and sustainability.
- Enterprise Architecture principles, methods, and consultation help groups do this on behalf of the entire University.
Scope
To meet its charge, the EA team will:
- Consult with groups to include broad, long-term context in their decisions and strategies
- Develop and manage reference architectures on behalf of the UW
- Bring analytical methods that help groups identify tradeoffs, maximize value, and reach decisions
- Convene stakeholders across UW organizations to build common understanding and collaboration
- Inspire and educate people to think and act architecturally in their own work through outreach, training, and communities of practice
- Proactively analyze strategic issues and bring recommendations to key decision-makers
- Escalate key architectural decisions to senior management
- Support key functions such as strategy and portfolio management
Architectural Value
Enterprise Architectural works to maximize Architectural Value, which results from decisions in planning, design, and implementation that:
- Align services closely to UW needs and design them to enable business outcomes;
- Balance trade-offs in solutions, such as functionality, reuse, full lifecycle costs, and risk;
- Manage data to enable future opportunities and decision-making;
- Streamline business processes and set them up for ongoing improvement; and
- Develop organizations and individuals that are prepared for the future.