Architectural Solution as a tool for planning and approval of changes in projects for information systems implementation and customization

Abstract

The agile project management approach has been considered to be one of the most popular approaches for developing IT solutions. Use of this approach allows us to change the requirements at any stage of the IT project, and one of the twelve principles of Agile Manifesto, -"Simplicity", -promotes the use of a minimum amount of project documentation. One of the disadvantages limiting the implementation in such resource-intensive projects as Information Systems Projects (ISP) is the risk of exceeding budgets and time limits. Therefore it is highly important to develop such a tool that will contribute in discussion and approval process with the customer before changes are started so as to minimize the possibilities of changes at further stages of the project. This article investigates the possibility of applying holistic methods of the Enterprise Architecture (EA) in order to support solutions design during an Information System Project, in particular, in the form of documentation at the stage before implementation planning. The main aim of our research is to develop a tool that will help the customer to understand the planned changes and will contribute in that their infl uence on the already existing EA is taken into account. This article fi rst reviews standards of IT project management in the context of recommendations for "conceptual project" outcomes. Next, the results of interviews conducted with IT consultants are presented. The proposed Architectural Solution (AS) is a document that completes the stage of design and coordinating IT changes. It is based on the application of methods and models from the fi eld of EA. We believe this solution may be a suffi cient document for coordinating projects that are conducted under agile philosophy.

Enterprise Architecture Approach for Project Management and Project-Based Organizations: A Review

“…These clusters are also connected using the CANVAS model [86,87], APQC reference process framework [87], and Agile Project Management (APM) [40,86,88]. Over time, the relationship turned to EA, beginning with Zachman's EA framework [89][90][91] and later the ArchiMate language [51,53,[92][93][94][95] and the TOGAF framework [91,96]. With PMBOK, PM PRINCE standards are displayed, indicating that these standards are most commonly used by researchers and practitioners [97,98].…”

“…Applications of EA on IT projects or IT project management needs, e.g., [23,96]. AEC Architecture, Engineering, and Construction projects [99,100].…”