Purpose

The application of agility principles and methodologies on Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a promising field. This paper aims to provide an in-depth study of the Agile Enterprise Architecture (AEA) by studying EA practitioners’ perspectives to propose a foundational framework for AEA.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors formulate a foundational framework that defines the AEA motivators, enablers and blockers using the agile manifesto as one of the AEA enablers where a total of 156 EA stakeholders with at least one year of experience in enterprise architecture were surveyed, and a set of hypotheses was analyzed and tested based on the proposed framework. The authors also develop a quantitative method to evaluate the agility index of the EA based on the introduced framework.

Findings

The research results show with significance that enterprise architects perceive positively the application of the agility methodologies on the enterprise architecture. This perception is primarily affected by the enterprise size, the EA dependency and the agile methodologies awareness. The findings also indicate that AEA is primarily motivated by the Business and IT Change Ready and Responsive EA. Finally, an EA Agility Index (EAAI) was designed to assess the agility application of the EA based on the three forces, i.e. motivators, enablers and blockers.

Research limitations/implications

Because of the chosen research approach and the sample size, the research results may lack generalizability. Also, EAAI designed was not thoroughly tested.

Practical implications

The paper includes implications for the design and development of an EA Agility Index, and the need to increase the awareness of the agility methodologies to overcome the blocker of the unfamiliarity with the agile methodologies implying that the current business models in enterprise must be more aligned with the agile methodologies.

Originality/value

While there are efforts to develop AEA frameworks, one of the major findings of the literature review conducted is that there is evident research gap in the literature on the perception and associated factors of the EA stakeholders on having an agile enterprise architecture. This paper attempts to fill this gap.

中文翻译：

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敏捷企业架构的基础框架

目的

敏捷性原则和方法在企业架构 (EA) 上的应用是一个很有前景的领域。本文旨在通过研究 EA 从业者的观点，对敏捷企业架构 (AEA) 进行深入研究，从而提出 AEA 的基础框架。

设计/方法/方法

作者制定了一个基础框架，定义了 AEA 激励因素、推动因素和阻碍因素，使用敏捷宣言作为 AEA 推动因素之一，其中调查了总共 156 名具有至少一年企业架构经验的 EA 利益相关者，并提出了一组假设基于所提出的框架进行了分析和测试。作者还基于引入的框架开发了一种量化方法来评估 EA 的敏捷性指数。

发现

研究结果表明，企业架构师对敏捷方法在企业架构上的应用有着积极的看法。这种看法主要受企业规模、EA 依赖性和敏捷方法意识的影响。调查结果还表明，AEA 的主要动机是业务和 IT 变革就绪和响应式 EA。最后，设计了一个 EA 敏捷性指数 (EAAI)，以评估基于三种力量（即激励因素、促成因素和阻碍因素）的 EA 的敏捷性应用。

研究限制/影响

由于选择的研究方法和样本量，研究结果可能缺乏普遍性。此外，设计的 EAAI 并未经过彻底测试。

实际影响

该论文包括对 EA 敏捷性指数的设计和开发的影响，以及需要提高对敏捷性方法的认识以克服对敏捷方法不熟悉的障碍，这意味着企业中当前的业务模型必须与敏捷方法论。

原创性/价值

虽然努力开发 AEA 框架，但文献综述的主要发现之一是，文献中关于 EA 利益相关者对拥有敏捷企业架构的看法和相关因素的研究存在明显的差距。本文试图填补这一空白。