Enterprise Architecture. Mapping of BMC, DEMO and ArchiMate

Minh N. Lê Master Thesis Enterprise Architecture – Mapping of BMC, DEMO and ArchiMate iii ABSTRACT In need of continuous change, many big organisations face a complexity increase in their current information systems portfolio. This often leads to undesirable high IT costs, difficulties in ensuring the reliability of data, and lack of flexibility and agility. One of the resolutions to this complexity increase is the introduction of Enterprise Architecture (EA). For a long time, the Ministry of Defence (hereinafter referred to as MinDef) has been looking into how they can work under architecture. Several initiatives have been launched. At the beginning of 2013, the first architecture was made, named IDA (Integrale Defensie Architectuur – Integrated Defence Architecture). IDA uses different EA methods and techniques. The three main methods are: Business Model Canvas (BMC), Design and Engineering Methodology for Organisations (DEMO), and ArchiMate. It is therefore interesting to know what the relationship is between these methods and how we can translate a component from one method to another. If one component is changed in one place, will the change happen in another place accordingly? And if so, what and where can the consequences be found? Is the relationship based on interpretation or certain rules? The research objective of this thesis project is to provide a model transformation from BMC to ArchiMate, from BMC to DEMO, and from DEMO to ArchiMate. To achieve the research objective, we have conducted a theoretical and practical comparative evaluation of BMC, DEMO and ArchiMate. First the three methods were studied and compared according to the analysing framework from Wijers (1991). Then, the mappings between the methods were performed by comparing the concept definition of the methods with each other. The result of this comparison was used as a basis for a survey and was submitted to the leading national and foreign enterprise architecture experts for their opinion. Regrettably, very few replies were received. The founding father of ArchiMate (Lankhorst) was the only one, besides nine Enterprise Architects of MinDef, who filled out the survey completely. Quite unexpectedly however, following the survey, a worldwide debate started between the involved experts. Apparently, the survey touched upon a controversial subject! The community was divided in two groups with different opinions on how enterprise architecture methods are related. After recovering from the shock of the discussion that we started inadvertently, we have applied the three methods on the practical case of ArchiSurance. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) The experts are not unanimous in their opinions about how enterprise architecture methods relate; (2) The mapping between the three methods from our study is not generalizable, as very few replies were received from the survey; (3) Despite the fact that the EA community is divided by different opinions, we find that: a. ArchiMate concepts can be linked to the BMC concepts; b. DEMO concepts can be linked to the BMC concepts; c. We could not arrive at a conclusion about the relationship between DEMO and ArchiMate. The case of ArchiSurance provided only three concepts, which can be used to link DEMO to ArchiMate. There is too little evidence to conclude anything about the mapping between ArchiMate and DEMO and to validate our proposed rules. Further, the practical comparison between DEMO and ArchiMate did not correspond with the theoretical one. It would be premature and incorrect to conclude that concepts in DEMO and ArchiMate cannot be linked. We rather think that our proposed rules need to be adjusted at this point. More study is needed to provide a reliable result;