U.S. Department of Agriculture
The United States Department of Agriculture delivers
a wide range of programs to achieve its mission of providing leadership
on food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development and related
issues. With 29 agencies grouped under 8 mission areas, a staff of
100 thousand people and an annual budget of $80 billion, it is one
of the largest and most complex organizations in the US federal government.
EA at USDA – A New Approach to Coping
with Complexity and Change
Like any major organization today, the USDA must constantly
adapt to its changing environment. Since it relies heavily on information
technology to deliver, manage and support its programs, that includes
changing the way it does business to capitalize on advances in computing
and communications capabilities, and new IT enabled business models
such as “e-government”. To cope with the challenge of
planning and managing change in such a complex environment, the USDA
has adopted enterprise architecture as a management discipline. EA
is becoming a key to aligning its business processes and supporting
resources, especially IT resources, with its strategic goals and related
objectives. Moreover, the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, the E-Government
Act of 2002, and guidance from the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) have all encouraged and – in some cases – mandated
the development and use of enterprise architectures to effectively
manage information technology and make informed IT investment decisions.
The EA Repository – Building the Knowledge
Base to Adapt and Excel
To support its EA initiative, the USDA’s Office
of the CIO purchased Adaptive Enterprise Architecture ManagerTM which
is based on the company’s comprehensive, standards based enterprise
metadata repository Adaptive FoundationTM. “Enterprise metadata”
refers to facts about the key elements of an enterprise, including
its business processes, organization structures, IT applications and
data, computing and communications infrastructures, and the relevant
relationships among those elements. That information is critical to
understanding the enterprise, and to planning and implementing change.
Referred to as the USDA Enterprise Architecture Repository (EAR) the
Department’s implementation of the Adaptive software is now
a key tool supporting its EA centered change management processes.
Phase 1 – Understanding the Present
In order to comply with the Clinger-Cohen Act, government
agencies in the US must show traceability from the outcomes of major
investment programs to their goals and objectives. And they must classify
their investments according to an agreed upon federal enterprise architecture
framework (FEAF). The FEAF is comprised of classification schemes
referred to as “reference models” pertaining to: the business
activities of government (BRM), the aspects of performance targeted
for improvement (PRM), the nature of services used (SRM), the types
of data used (DRM), and the types of information technology resources
used (TRM).
The initial use of the EAR has been to capture information
on approximately five hundred investments totalling over $2.5 billion
and to “connect” those investments to the goals and objectives
to which they contribute. The investments have also been classified
according to the FEAF reference models as well as several department-defined
classification schemes. This information is being been used to show
how the Department’s investments in change initiatives align
with its strategic intent, and to indicate what the investments are
producing in terms of new business and IT capabilities, the parts
of the business that are benefiting and the nature of the benefits.
In addition, information on over 800 major business
applications has been collected. As with investments, applications
have been connected to the goals and objectives to which they contribute,
and classified according to the types of business activity they support,
and the types of services and technology resources they use. This
information is being used to identity potential opportunities to consolidate
applications and/or share services and resources. With the introduction
of the new data reference model (DRM), applications will also be classified
according to the type of data they produce and use with a view to
integrating and sharing data resources as well.
Phase 2 – Focusing on the Future
The Department has just completed its next five-year
plan (2005-2010). This plan calls for the continued implementation
of several business transformation initiatives, and the establishment
of new initiatives, especially under the banner of e-government.
Over the last two years, the Department has put in place
the key elements of a new “shared services” technology
infrastructure to support these transformation initiatives. This infrastructure
is designed in particular to support e-government applications in
connection with enabling citizens and businesses to interact with
the Department on-line. In addition to providing a secure environment
for processing transactions, it provides related services to manage
web portals, web-site content, documents, and workflow. The Department
has also established the management structures and processes to guide
and control this next wave of development based on the use of these
kinds of capabilities.
The EA repository is being used to capture information
on the “future state” of the Department and associated
transition plans. This will include descriptions of the target architectures
for business processes, applications, data, services and technical
infrastructures.
A Federated Management Approach Requires a Federated
EA Repository
The Department has adopted a “federated”
approach to ensuring its business and IT capabilities meet its evolving
requirements. In broad terms, this means that the corporate level
of management plays an overall leadership role in EA; the corporate
and agency levels collaborate on the planning, implementation and
control of processes and resources that are used in common across
the department; and individual agencies (sometimes multiple agencies)
or mission areas take responsibility for developing processes or resources
for which they have unique requirements.
The EA Repository is being deployed as a “common
enterprise-wide” application. This is based on the premise that
by sharing information across the department all of the “agents
of change” involved in adapting the various aspects of the department
will be better able to align their respective activities with each
other to achieve common objectives. It is also based on the premise
that not all processes and resources need to be managed from an enterprise
or “corporate” perspective. Indeed, a large number of
processes and resources need to be managed at the agency level.
Therefore, the information in the EAR needs to meet
corporate, common and agency-specific purposes. As a result, the EAR
is structured as one physical repository with multiple virtual areas
for the different organizational levels. “Common” areas,
and related content, are visible across the department and “private”
areas and content for specific organizational levels are kept logically
separate unless and until those responsible for that content wish
to “publish” it for access by the rest of the enterprise.
Positioned for Continuous Learning and Innovation
Like any major enterprise the USDA must be a “learning”
organization, able to sense the need for change and respond with the
right changes at the right time. The Department’s enterprise
architecture initiative is creating a comprehensive model of the department,
both as it exists today and as envisioned for the future. The EA Repository
is the vehicle for capturing and sharing that knowledge. By continuously
evolving and updating the architecture and sharing it with a wide
range of internal and external stakeholders via the EAR, the USDA
is significantly strengthening its abilities to adapt and innovate
to better contribute to the social and economic well-being of Americans. |
