The Role of Architecture Evaluations in ICT-companies

Abstract

Architecture evaluation is a way to get answers to organisation’s information needs and problems relating to its business and ICT. Companies’ needs to move towards business value driven ICT-development and pressures to improve the costeffectiveness of ICT are some of the reasons for the increasing interest in the evaluations and measurements of architectures. However, the role and the meaning which architecture evaluation may have in companies is not clearly identified or defined. For example, needs and triggers for architectural evaluations do not seem to be identified in previous studies. The aim of this study is to gain understanding of roles and meanings, which architecture evaluation and measurement may have in companies. Triggers for evaluations and measurements were identified and analyzed. Practitioners from five ICT user and service provider organisations were interviewed in this study. This study reveals that the role of architecture evaluation may be to enhance the understanding of company’s business and ICT-environments from financial and structural viewpoints. In addition, it can be used as a tool in change management, quality assurance, process planning, IT cost management and architectural choice making.