Which Projects Are Enterprise Projects?

Another question that IT departments frequently wrestle with is which projects and systems should be enterprise projects , built and operated for the good of multiple business units, and which are better built and operated by the business units themselves. Figure 20-1 shows a decision matrix I've found helpful for determining what activities and projects fall under the "enterprise" umbrella.

Enterprise decision matrix

Figure 20-1. Enterprise decision matrix


The two axes in Figure 20-1 are strategic importance and the scope of an activity or project. Activities and projects farther along the horizontal axis more directly support the strategic goals of the organization, and activities and projects farther along the vertical axis are used by or affect more and more of the organization. Here are a few examples:

The upper-right quadrant represents activities and projects that are clearly enterprise projects. They are strategically important and affect many divisions within the organization. These activities and projects should fall under the purview of the IMA effort and are likely candidates to be planned, implemented, and maintained by the enterprise IT organization.

The lower-left quadrant, by contrast, is populated by activities and projects that are neither strategic nor large in scope. Most of these activities and project never rise to the notice of the enterprise IT group and affect very few departments. All of the spreadsheets that people create every day in support of their jobs are good examples of the extreme case. They are very tactical and support only a single person or a small group.

The band across the middle of the figure illustrates a strategy for dealing with projects that are on the borderline. The goal of an IMA is to create an environment for interoperability. Many of the projects in the upper-left and lower-right quadrants will not be conducted by the enterprise IT group, but rather by a business unit. Still, with the proper standards, policies, and procedures in place, their work should interoperate with the digital identity infrastructure that results from the IMA. Reference architectures play a critical role in supporting the interoperability of business unit-sponsored projects.