Taking initial steps towards enterprise architecture in local government

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of immature use of Enterprise Architectures (EAs). In this paper we present results from an eGovernment initiative in a Swedish local government. This longitudinal case study illustrates the problems of taking initial steps of moving towards an EA during the development and implementation an eGovernment initiative. Through an analysis of goal achievements, we develop a better understanding of the challenges of using EA frameworks for local eGovernment-projects. Our results show that the immature use of the EA framework resulted in parts of the organization deviating from plan where individual members began to implement individual solutions, instead of basing decisions on the overall architecture. This impaired project's possibility to develop towards an EA in an efficient way. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.