Business Outcome-Driven Enterprise Architecture

Last week I was reading article how different Business outcome- Driven Enterprise Architecture are used. Regardless of the specific framework or combination of frameworks that you are using, organizations can increase the business value and impact from their EA efforts by developing a stage plan that is focused on business outcomes. A business outcome is a statement of a specific business benefit result that is measurable, achievable within a specified time frame, and in support of the business strategy and objectives. 
A business outcome is expressed as a change occurring with a specific short- or long-term time frame. The best way to ensure that a business outcome is targeted to meet business needs is to map it to the critical strategic questions that senior executives are asking. The focus on business outcomes shifts the thinking away from "what enterprise architects do" and moves it toward "delivering signature-ready deliverables that drive business change," thus enabling enterprise architects to take a pragmatic approach to developing EA. Once a stage plan is created, with a defined focus on business outcomes, the EA team can work on effectively executing the stage plan through the EA delivery cycle.

Stage Planning: Focus on Target, Frame and Plan
Thinking in terms of stage planning guides EA practitioners through the practical steps to:
Target: Clearly identify the highest priority target business outcomes that EA efforts will address in the next iteration, based on understanding the disruptive opportunities and threats impacting your business and your business strategy.
Frame: Streamline EA development to create only the deliverables that directly address the highest-priority business outcomes and address the questions and concerns of specific stakeholders.
Plan: Decompose the deliverables to identify the tasks, dependencies and resources required to create those deliverables.

Key Challenges

• Leading enterprise architects develop enterprise architecture in iterations. Targeting a limited set of business outcomes for each iteration is critical to the success of the EA program.
• Enterprise architects must clearly frame the deliverables that are linked to the target business outcomes to guide and focus the enterprise architecture development.
• Planning for EA development must concentrate exclusively on the deliverables required to address the target business outcomes.
  
   http://www.gartner.com/document/3118219?ref=feed