# Presentation: 092446

## A Practical Guide to Enterprise Architecture

- Brett Bobley, CIO, National Endowment for the Humanities
- Co-Chair, Small Agency CIO Council
- bbobley@neh.gov

**More**

## Introduction

- My goal is to show you how a small agency/bureau can easily create a useful Enterprise Architecture (EA) that will help you plan for the future.
- For the purposes of this demonstration, I will be using examples from my CY2001 EA.
- Why am I using an old version of my EA?  In order to demonstrate that an EA really works!  As of 2004, I have already reached the goals in my 2001 target architecture.

## Step 1: What is Your Mission?

- What does your agency/branch/whatever actually do?
- Don't describe it in computer terms.
- Do your best to describe it from a business perspective.

## Example:  At the NEH, our core mission is making grants.  Accomplishing this mission involves advertising our grants, receiving applications, reviewing them, making awards, and doing post-award tracking. 

- _Step 1: Mission Example_

## Step 2: Put Together a Team

- Doesn't have to be huge!  <g>
- But you need to get the key players from your business together in a room to have good discussions.
- Don't forget that you'll need people from both program and administrative sides of the house.
- You need a combination of people from different levels of the agency.  Often the secretaries know a lot more about the business process than your executives!

## Step 2: Team Member Examples

- For my EA, I got the following folks together for my team:
- Representatives from each grant-making program office.
- Reps from our Grants Management office.
- Reps from our Publications and Public Affairs staff.
- Reps from our Strategic Planning staff.
- Reps from our Administrative Services staff.
- Reps from our General Counsel staff.
- Our Deputy Chairman.

## Step 3: Customers

- Define your customers. Who are they?
- What do your customers need?  What role do they play in your business?
- How do they interact with your agency?

## Step 3: Customer Examples

- The NEH's customers are scholarly institutions like universities, libraries, and museums.
- They interact with us as follows:
- They must learn about grant opportunities.
- They must fill out and submit grant materials.
- Those materials go through a merit review process.
- Some applications are awarded a grant.  Some are not.
- Those awarded a grant will receive monies and will also complete certain post-grant tasks like submitting reports.

## Step 4: Business Vision

- You can use this step to talk about where you want to go.  How might you improve your business going forward?

## Step 4: Business Vision Examples

- We want our customers to be able to apply online.  This will be a big time and cost-saver for both the applicant and the agency.
- We want to replace many of our mail out peer reviews with online peer review.  This will save a great deal of time, paper, and postage.
- We want to be able to create committee books automatically rather than having to manually assemble them from photocopied application materials.  This will save weeks of work for our staff.

## Step 5: Write up Your Baseline Architecture

- Now the fun begins!
- For the chosen mission area, figure out, step by step, your business process!
- Flow charts are an easy way to make this happen. (I used the lines and boxes in Powerpoint).
- Put your flowcharts up on a white board and ask your team to go through it step by step.
- I guarantee that you will learn new things about your business process you never knew before.

## Summer Stipends 

**Summer Stipends **
**Flowchart**

- Summer Stipends Flyers

- Newly Interested Scholar

- Department Chairs

- Ad Placed in Chronicle

- Requests Guidelines
- be Mailed

- Gets Guidelines from
- Web site

- Scholar with Application Material

- Nominated by
- Institution

- Independent or
- Exempt

- Scholar eligible to mail in
- Application materials

**Page One**
- How the Applicant finds out about the Summer Stipends program and obtains the application materials.

- Scholar is only eligible if he/she is:

- Information posted via
- listservs

## Page Two

**Page Two**
- The paper flow between the applicant, the NEH, and the panelists.

- Scholar eligible to mail in
- Application materials

- Scholar Mails in the following materials:
- Application Cover Sheet (Form)
- Narrative (text)
- Sample (only for translations)
- Bibliography (text)
- Resume (text)

- Referee Mails in the following materials:
- Reference Letter Form (Form)

- Stipends Team Opens Mail

- Is Application Complete?

- Application Entered into Wang,
- app # generated

- IRM mails Acknowledgement
- letter to applicant

- Reference letters  copied, stapled to applications and filed in folders

- Applications sorted into piles by discipline for panels.

- Use Wang and WP to create a panel agenda document

- Mail panelists large envelope with application materials

- After 2 weeks, Mail panelists late arriving documents

- After 1 month, panelists mail back rating sheets

- Panelists are paid

**Summer Stipends **
**Flowchart**

**Panelist**

- Rating Sheet sent back

## Page Three

- Stipends Team
- receives ratings from panelists, and collates, copies, and gives to Panel Chair along with pile of applications

**Page Three**
- Once the ratings have been received from the panelists, this page shows how the recommended applications are found and then placed into the committee book.

**Summer Stipends **
**Flowchart**

- Panel Chair (one of several)
** **will now:
- resolve splits
- call panelist to resolve typos/mistakes
- meet with Program Officer to make
- final recommendations

- Program  Officer
-  now has thee types of rec.:
- 1) Fund
- 2) Not fund
- 3) Borderline for Staff Review

- Staff Review Team
-  (Prog. Off + 2 Chairs)
- Will now discuss and come to a
- consensus of who is recommended
- and who isn’t.

- Division Director & Deputy

- Stipends Team
- Collects face sheets for the rec.
- applications. Assembles committee
- book consisting of:
- list of applicants by panel
- face sheets of recommended app.
- index
- panelist rosters

- Gives input

- Approves book, writes cover memo

- ASO Staff
- Makes bound copies
- of committee book.

- Division Directors

- 5th Floor Staff

- Program Officers

- Council Committee

- Gives instructions to Panel Chair

- Gives recommendations

- Gives borderlines for review

- Grants Office

- General Counsel

## Page Four

**Page Four**
- Once the committee bookhas been distributed, flagsare found and eventuallyresolved.  After theChairman and post-councilteam makes final decisions,letters are sent to notify theapplicants.

**Summer Stipends **
**Flowchart**

- PreCouncil Team
- (Chairman, Deputy, Div. Directors,
- OSP, Office Heads, GC, Division
- Staff)
- They will read committee book and
- may flag some of the applications.

- Council Committee Mtg
- Discusses applications and
- attempts to resolve flags. May
- add their own flags.

- Division Staff

- Full Council
- Discusses and makes
- recommendations to chairman.

- Chairman & Post-Council Team
- Make the final decision on who to fund/not fund.

- Final Motion

- May need more info

- Funded Applicant

- Not Funded Applicant

## Step 6: Write up your Target Architecture

- Now take your baseline flowchart and have fun with it.
- Work with your team to explore ways of removing some of the boxes to make the process faster or less complex.
- With the end business goals in mind, brainstorm on ways in which you can dump the current process entirely and come up with a better one!
- Look at ways that technology can help you achieve these goals.

## Slide 17

## Slide 18

## Slide 19

## Slide 20

## Step 7: Technology Forecast

- Once you have a target architecture you are comfortable with, it is time to get "real" and look at how you might accomplish this.
- In your technology forecast section, you can describe your baseline technology and then talk about where you'd like to go to get to your target architecture.

## Step 7: Technology Forecast Example

- We currently use a Wang mainframe for storing grants data.  It doesn't speak to other computers, so we can't exchange data with the web or export data to any modern COTS tools.
- We want to move to a platform that can talk to websites, that can use web services and XML, and can allow us to import/export data to other products.

## Step 8: Standards Profile

- In this section, you'll get a little more specific and talk about the technology standards you use at your agency and what you'll be using to get to your target architecture.

## Slide 8: Standards Profile Example

- At this time, we're moving away from the Wang mainframe.  We are standardizing our databases on SQL Server; our web servers on Internet Information Server;  ASP.NET as our web programming environment; Crystal Reports for reporting.

## Step 9: Sequencing & Migration

- Now for the actual plan for getting to our goal!
- Lay out a timeline of milestones in order to reach the target architecture.
- Don't be super-detailed.  You will later expand on these milestones in your IRM Strategic Plan, your business case, and other documents.
- Keep it simple.  This document will be useful when it comes time to brief OMB, your budgeting office, your upper management, etc.
- The idea is for all your team (and your agency) to get behind this plan as an important strategic goal.

## Step 9: Sequencing & Migration Examples

- Complete testing for SQL based grants database and begin processing live data.
- Once conversion is complete, we will be able to import/export data to e-grants systems on the web.
- Complete testing of electronic grants website.
- Ensure that applications can be properly filled out and imported. Work with customers to ensure it meets their needs.
- Begin accepting electronic grant applications for 1 - 2 test programs.
- Concentrate first on those with simpler requirements. Get best bang for the buck.

## Step 10: Risk and Gap Analysis

- What are the risks, issues, and gaps that might throw up roadblocks?
- By documenting these risks, you'll be able to come up with ways of mitigating or even eliminating them.

## Step 10: Risk Analysis Examples

- Collecting Information Electronically
- Some parts of the application will be easy to receive electronically (like the narrative or cover sheet).  But what about videotapes?  Or catalogs?  Or books?  What policy decisions might have to be made to deal with this mixture of analog and digital application submissions?
- Certification of Applicants
- Currently, applications are certified by an institution via a pen and ink signature. How will we handle this in the digital domain?  We must work with general counsel to ensure digital signature is used appropriately.

## Questions??

- Contact me at:
- Brett Bobley, _[bbobley@neh.gov](mailto:bbobley@neh.gov)_
- Slides and materials available at:
- www.neh.gov/whoweare/cio.html