Method engineering in practice: A case of applying the Zachman framework in the context of small enterprise architecture oriented projects

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.