Enterprise architecture, defined by the MIT Center for Information Systems Research as the “organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure,” provides an integrated environment that supports an organization’s mission and assists agencies in maximizing use of resources. With state and local governments across the U.S. leveraging enterprise architecture frameworks of their own, how does CDT plan to distinguish itself from the rest?
At the Techwire Industry Briefing last week, Word explained the efforts CDT is taking to change the way California’s public sector views the enterprise architecture (EA) methodology, dividing the department’s efforts into three main categories: business outcome-driven architecture, data-centric organization and management of legacy systems.
Business Outcome-Driven Architecture
California’s enterprise state architecture is aligned with the state’s Project Approval Lifecycle (PAL) process. However, since most of EA staff have backgrounds in technology, Word said project planning traditionally has been solution-driven with little focus on business architecture and analysis, which with certain initiatives has caused issues in the earlier stages of the approval life cycle.“This is where I’m challenging the departments,” Word said. “You still need to do your planning, starting with your business architecture.”
Promoting this sentiment, CDT created a business architecture plan for the procurement and implementation of a statewide cannabis tracking system. The project is a major cross-agency initiative, so Word said it's important to put more emphasis on figuring out what it looks like to share services. He noted that the business architecture plan essentially takes care of the Stage 1 Business Analysis (S1BA) and Stage 2 Alternatives Analysis (S2AA) steps of the PAL.
CDT will be using the same approach as it did with the cannabis system with its enterprise Human Resources project. Staff is currently working with a team of consultants doing market research to assess what types of solutions are currently available, and getting stakeholder and sponsors on board with the overall vision of the project. In addition, Word said he holds monthly meetings with the state’s EA community to continue promoting the business outcome-driven architecture process and develop a “matrix-type” of coordination for the HR project.
“We’re doing this in a really short, compressed time frame,” explained Word. “We’re trying to do things a little bit quicker and get through S1 and S2 in a matter of months, instead of a year for planning followed by year for the procurement.”
Data-Centric Organization
As state IT continues to evolve, departments are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of data in cross-agency initiatives. With the immense amount of information gathered by individual departments, CDT is looking at how to get more into a data-centric mentality to help manage all of it.Word referenced previous discussions officials had with the state of Washington regarding its cannabis system. In those conversations, staff from Washington explained that their administrative resources were drained when public record requests were filed because the system’s data was not integrated. As a way to help avoid a similar issue in California, CDT plans to implement a single hub with its cannabis application that will centralize and integrate data going across the system.
Managing Legacy Systems
Managing legacy systems is something almost all departments are grappling with, but the issue is too widespread and expensive to handle in one “big bang” replacement project, according to Word.“The mainframe to me is not the problem, but more how it was developed because the applications are so tightly integrated and coupled, you can’t make quick changes,” Word commented.
Instead of undertaking one giant replacement effort, CDT is scaling back and breaking up work related to legacy systems into smaller initiatives. The department also remains open to moving forward with mainframe as a solution for certain applications and doing modifications as seen fit.
