A colleague of mine is interested in using EA to create benefits maps, showing relationships and dependencies between stated organisational objectives through to measurable business benefits, all the way through to technical changes that bring about those benefits.
From a business case perspective, these maps show, for example, which IT changes will bring about the most benefits, and in turn which benefits link in with organisational objectives and business drivers.
As an approver of funding, I’d review the map, observe which IT/business changes bring about the most ‘benefit’ in terms of strategic fit and prioritise/approve accordingly.
Each element on this diagram will hold a degree of information ‘behind the scenes’; whether it’s a more detailed summary, an owner, a source, priority, weighted score, a unique ID etc.
Presently my colleague uses Visio to model and an Excel spreadsheet to maintain the information per element, as well as textual breakdowns of the linkages between elements.
I sold her EA (not literally, just persuaded her to get access) on the basis that EA would be able to carry out both applications’ functions here, and my request is for help on how to set up these kinds of models so that not only is the modelling part covered, but how to be able to report (csv. compatible export format would be great – as not all of our users will have access to EA) on not only the end-end relationships between elements on the diagram, but also the information attributed to each element.
Any help appreciated – even if it’s just on how to leverage the reporting capabilities of EA to ‘get at’ the data behind each element.
