CIO Council has 'practical guide'

Despite being legally required under the Clinger-Cohen Act to implement an enterprise architecture, few federal organizations have done so. Even in those that have put a framework in place, most are not maintained regularly or used for daily operations.

The CIO Council, which coordinates with the Office of Management and Budget on information technology issues, wants to change that by providing agencies with a guide to defining, maintaining and implementing an enterprise architecture.

"There is literally no federal guidance [on] how to successfully manage the process of creating, changing and using the enterprise architecture," according to the 60-page document, "A Practical Guide to Federal Enterprise Architecture."

"This guidance is crucially important," according to the document. "Without it, it is highly unlikely that an organization can successfully produce a complete and enforceable EA for optimizing its systems' business value and mission performance systems."

The document can be found on the CIO Council's Web site at www.itpolicy.gsa. gov/mke/archplus/ea_guide.doc.