Information System Change Assessment in the Context of Enterprise Architecture

Nowadays the majority of enterprise business processes are executed or supported by information systems (IS). IS have an essential role in business process optimization and transformation in order to capture opportunities arising in a dynamic business environment. To remain competitive and to develop the business, the enterprise business processes undergo continuous improvement and changes are frequently introduced. The changes in the enterprise business processes cause modification in enterprise IS. These modifications can be systematically managed following a change management process. The change assessment is one of the most important change management components. Planned IS changes before their realisation frequently are not evaluated according to enterprise strategic goals. Incomplete change evaluation leads enterprises to decisions that are not aligned with architecture vision, what have a negative impact on enterprise architecture (EA) quality. We propose a methodology for planned IS change evaluation according to EA vision. The objective of the proposed approach is to provide support for establishing a controlled environment for AA change implementation planning to meet defined architecture principles. The proposed approach is envisioned as a middle-ground between isolated evaluation of the IS change requests and comprehensive strategic level planning of EA evolution. Different methods are used for the implementation of methodology. We propose two methods for examination compliance of the principles “re-use” and “centralize”, which in practice are often included in the EA’s vision.