Assessment Brief: BIS2005 Enterprise Architecture Trimester 3, 2021 Assessment Overview

Assessment Brief: BIS2005 Enterprise Architecture

Trimester 3, 2021

Assessment Overview

	Assessment Task		Type	Weighting	Due		Length		ULO
	Assessment 1: Case Study		Group	30%	Week		3500 words		ULO-1
	Propose EA artifacts, taxonomy of			Report: 25%	5		(report and		ULO-2
	documentations that to be delivered for a			Presentation:			power point		ULO-3
	particular case study. In addition, to discuss			5%			slides with
	the operating model and types of IT						embedded
	initiatives.						audio)
	Assessment 2: Report		Individual	40%	Week		3600 words		ULO-3
	Write a report to examine the architecture				12				ULO-4
	function of a specific organisation and								ULO-5
	determining the operating model for a
	multi-profile company. The report should
	also cover the core concepts of data and
	information architecture and evaluate
	existing data and information architecture
	designs, continuity plans in the context of
	EA and role of audit and compliance
	standards in EA (details in the Assessment
	Brief).
	Assessment 3: Quiz		Individual	30%	Week		30 Minutes		ULO-1
	Every quiz will be conducted based on the				2, 4, 6,		for each quiz		ULO-2
	teaching and learning materials covered in		Invigilated		8 & 10		(equiv. 750		ULO-3
	previous two weeks, for an example, quiz 1						words )		ULO-4
	in week 3 will be based on week 1 and week								ULO-5
	2 teaching and learning materials (details in
	the Assessment Brief).

 

 

Assessment 1: Case Study

 

Due date:	Week 5
Group/individual:	Group
Word count / Time provided:	3500
Weighting:	30% (Report: 25% Presentation: 5%
Unit Learning Outcomes:	ULO1, ULO2, ULO3

Assessment Details:

This case study will assess your knowledge of key content areas (Week 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 contents) and to identify further support needs. For successful completion of the case study, you are required to study the material provided (lecture slides, tutorials, and reading materials), engage in the unit’s activities, and in the discussion forums. The prescribed textbook is the main reference along with the recommended reading material. By completing this assessment successfully, you will be able to identify key aspects of information systems. This will help in achieving ULO4.

The case study will be completed and submitted in week 5.

Case Study:

AISystem is a multinational company that provides important services of a social nature to her customers. From the technology perspective, the organization can be considered as a late adopter of innovations and characterized by relative underinvestment in IT, which has certain implications for both its IT landscape and respective management practices. On the one hand, AISystem’s IT landscape is very heterogeneous and includes many legacy information systems and technologies some of which have been in use for decades. AISystem’s IT-related management practices are also rather archaic. For instance, the relationships between business and IT leaders in the organization exhibit evident signs of “us and them” mentality, while new investments in IT are viewed by business mostly to reduce costs of the existing operations.

AISystem has a centralized IT department headed by the CIO and responsible for developing and supporting information systems for all its business units. The IT department employs around 240 specialists and consists of three main functions: architecture, development, and service. The architecture function includes a few architects focused predominantly on specific IT solutions. AISystem previously tried to uplift the maturity of its EA practice and extend the scope of architectural planning beyond separate initiatives, but these attempts failed due to misalignment of its business and IT; therefore the respective architects had been made redundant.

 

In 2021, the CIO decided to undertake another deliberate effort to evolve AISystem’s EA practice with the involvement of external consultants at Accenture. For this purpose, the organization engaged a rather well-known EA consultancy (Accenture) to help initiate a full-fledged EA practice. The consultancy at Accenture formed a project team consisting of four architects specialized in different subject areas. This consulting team acted according to a detailed engagement plan agreed with AISystem’s senior IT leadership. The plan stipulated in which sequence and when exactly various EA artifacts will be produced. In total, consultants worked for 4-7 months, analyzed the organization, interviewed numerous stakeholders, and developed all the EA artifacts specified in the plan. Specifically, they started from analyzing AISystem in terms of current and desired maturity of its business capabilities and mapped existing applications to respective capabilities. Then, they captured all relevant data entities, documented all technologies used in the organization, depicted current and defined target application portfolios and created more detailed CRUD (create, read, update and delete) relationship matrices.

 

If you are Head of EA team at Accenture that AISystem engaged; based on the case study provided above and EA lecture notes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5:

 

1. Answer the following

 

1. Discuss five possible additional reasons why previous attempt to uplift the maturity of its EA practice failed.

 

1. Discuss five possible ways how Accenture would achieve business alignment and IT in AISystems practice.

 

 

2. Discuss five key benefits of implementation of EA in AISystem and 5 benefits of IT systems at AISystem.

 

3. AISystem’s team suggested that Accenture should implement Coordination EA operating models for them. However, your team at Accenture recommended that Unification EA operating model should be implemented for AISystem. Discuss four possible reasons why implementation of Unification EA operating model is key to the success of AISystem’s EA practice.

 

4. Discuss 5 (five) key reasons why Strategic Planning and Initiative delivery are key factors in EA practice.

 

5. Accenture recommended that ITIL framework should be also implemented in AISystems, what are the 5 key benefits of ITIL framework?

 

6. Discuss 4 types of IT initiatives that you have considered very important to AISystem’s EA practice

 

7. Describe 4 major stakeholders in the EA implementation at AISystem’s EA practice and what are their roles.

 

 

 

Marking Information: The case study will be marked out of 100 and will be weighted 30% of the total unit mark.

 

Marking Criteria	Not satisfactory	Satisfactory	Good	Very Good	Excellent
	(0-49%) of the	(50-64%) of the	(65-74%) of the	(75-84%) of the	(85-100%) of the
	criterion mark)	criterion mark	criterion mark	criterion mark	criterion mark
Case Study Q1	Not able to discuss	Discussed Q1a and	Most of the answers	All the answers	All the problems are
(15% marks)	Q1a and Q1b	Q1b l but details	identified and	identified and	clearly identified,
		missing	discussed but minor	discussed, provides	provided excellent
			points are missing	very good reasons,	reasons, and examines
				examines the EA	the EA implementation
				implementation	clearly
				clearly
Q2 (15% marks)	Discussed five key	Discussed five key	Discussed five key	Discussed five key	Discussed five key
	benefits of	benefits of	benefits of	benefits of	benefits of
	implementation of	implementation of EA	implementation of	implementation of EA	implementation of EA in
	EA in AISystem and	in AISystem and 5	EA in AISystem and	in AISystem and 5	AISystem and 5 benefits
	5 benefits of IT	benefits of IT systems	5 benefits of IT	benefits of IT systems	of IT systems at
	systems at AISystem	at AISystem but	systems at AISystem	at AISystem in detail,	AISystem in detail, very
	but not properly	details missing	in detail.	comprehensively	comprehensively and
	discussed.			examined in the	excellently examine the
				relation of EA	relation of EA
Q3 (10% marks	Discussed Q3 but	Discussed Q3 but	Discussed Q3	Discussed Q3	Discussed Q3 very
	lots of missing	details missing	practice in details	comprehensively	comprehensively
	information		but with minor	examined in the	examined in the relation
			missing details.	relation of EA	of EA

 

 

Q4 (10% marks	Discussed 5 (five)	Discussed 5 (five) key	Discussed 5 (five)	Discussed 5 (five) key	Discussed 5 (five) key
	key reasons why	reasons why Strategic	key reasons why	reasons why Strategic	reasons why Strategic
	Strategic Planning	Planning and Initiative	Strategic Planning	Planning and Initiative	Planning and Initiative
	and Initiative	delivery are key	and Initiative	delivery are key	delivery are key factors
	delivery are key	factors in EA practice	delivery are key	factors in EA practice	in EA practice in details,
	factors in EA	but details missing	factors in EA	comprehensively	very comprehensively
	practice but lots of		practice in details.	examined in the	examined in the relation
	missing information			relation of EA	of EA
Q5 (10% marks	Discussed are the 5	Discussed the 5 key	Discussed the 5 key	Discussed the 5 key	Discussed the 5 key
	key benefits of ITIL	benefits of ITIL	benefits of ITIL	benefits of ITIL	benefits of ITIL
	framework but lots	framework but few	framework in detail.	framework	framework in details,
	of missing	details missing		comprehensively	very comprehensively
	information			examined in the	examined in the relation
				relation of EA	of EA
Q6 (10% marks	Discussed 4 types of	Discussed 4 types of	Discussed 4 types of	Discussed 4 types of	Discussed 4 types of IT
	IT initiatives that	IT initiatives that you	IT initiatives that	IT initiatives that you	initiatives that you have
	you have	have considered very	you have	have considered very	considered very
	considered very	important to	considered very	important to	important to AISystem’s
	important to	AISystem’s EA	important to	AISystem’s EA and	EA with excellent
	AISystem’s EA not	identified properly,	AISystem’s EA	detailed explanation	explanation.
	properly discussed	but missing points	properly discussed,	provided.
			provided
Q7 (10% marks	Described the role	Described the role of	Described the role	Described the role of	Described the role of the
	of the 4 stakeholder	the 4 stakeholder in	of the 4 stakeholder	the 4 stakeholder in	4 stakeholder in the EA
	in the EA	the EA	in the EA	the EA	implementation and
	implementation and	implementation and	implementation and	implementation and	AISystem’s EA practice
	AISystem’s EA	AISystem’s EA	AISystem’s EA	AISystem’s EA	and excellent
	practice but with	practice but with	practice with good	practice with	information
	wrong information	missing information	information	excellent information
Structure,	Paper is poorly	Paper shows some	Paper is generally	Paper is generally well	Paper is coherently
grammar,	organized and	organization. At	well organized and	organized and most of	organized and the logic
presentation	difficult to read –	times, difficult to read	most of the	the argument is easy	is easy to follow. There
and Harvard	does not flow	and does not flow	argument is easy to	to follow. There are	are no spelling or
style	logically from one	logically from one	follow. There are	only a few minor	grammatical errors and
referencing	part to another.	part to another. There	some spelling	spelling or	terminology is clearly
(10% marks).	There are several	are some spelling	and/or grammatical	grammatical errors, or	defined.
	spelling and/or	and/or grammatical	errors; technical	terms are not clearly	Writing is clear and
	grammatical errors;	errors; technical	terms are generally	defined. Writing is	concise and persuasive.
	technical terms may	terms are generally	are poorly defined.	mostly clear. All	Harvard formatting style
	not be defined or	are poorly defined.	Writing is mostly	references cited	and citation of
	are poorly defined.	Includes Few	clear but may lack	correctly using	references in the body of
	Writing lacks clarity	references with	conciseness. All	citation style.	the report.
	and conciseness.	errors.	references cited
	Include few		correctly using
	references without		citation style with
	following Harvard		some minor errors.
	style reference
	guidelines or no
	reference.

 

 

Presentation	There are too many	There are many errors	There are some	There are few errors	There are no errors in
slides	errors in spelling,	in spelling, grammar,	errors in spelling,	in spelling, grammar,	spelling, grammar and
Visual Appeal	grammar, and	and punctuation. Too	grammar and	and punctuation. Too	punctuation.
(4% marks)	punctuation. The	much information	punctuation. Too	much information on	Information is clear and
	slides were difficult	was contained on	much information	two or more slides.	concise on each slide.
	to read, and slides	many slides.	on more than three	Presentation has	Presentation is
	contained	Minimal effort made	or more slides.	significant visual	visually
	information copied	to make slides	Presentation has	appeal.	appealing/engaging
	onto them from	appealing.	good visual appeal.
	another source. No
	visual appeal.
Presentation	Presenters did not	The presentation was	The presentation	The presentation was	Presentation was
topic	understand topic.	informative, but	was a good	a very good summary	excellent and shows
knowledge/con	The presentation	several elements	summary of the	of the topic.	extensive knowledge of
tent (4% marks)	was a brief look at	went unanswered.	topic. Major	Almost all-important	topic with
	the topic, but many	Much of the	information	information covered;	comprehensive and
	questions were left	information	covered;	presentation contain	complete coverage of
	unanswered.	irrelevant; coverage	presentation	little irrelevant	information.
	Majority of	of some of major	contain some	information.
	information	points.	irrelevant
	irrelevant and		information.
	significant points
	left out.
Presentation	Unsatisfactory	Satisfactory	Good presentation	Very good	Excellent presentation
skills (5%	presentation with	presentation with	with clarity and	presentation with	with clarity, pause,
marks)	no clarity,	some clarity and	pause in majority of	clarity and pause and	intonation and is capable
	appropriate pause,	pause.	speech.	able to engage	to engage listeners all
	intonation and is			listeners for most of	the time.
	not capable to			the time.
	engage listeners.

Assessment 2: Report

Due date:	Week 12
Group/individual:	Individual
Word count / Time provided:	3600 words
Weighting:	40%
Unit Learning Outcomes:	ULO-3, ULO-4, ULO-5

 

 

Assessment Details:

 

This assessment is designed to assess develop your skills in Enterprise Architecture (EA). You are required to develop knowledge on EA methodology, EA Framework, data model and emerging EA. In completing this assessment successfully, you will be able to know major widely accepted Enterprise Architecture (EA) domains, layers, frameworks and governance, which will help in achieving ULO-3, ULO-4, and ULO-5.

 

Report: Part-I (Case Study)

Techbank is a mid-size financial company. A couple of years ago Techbank decided to establish a full-fledged EA practice to accommodate with the growing problems around non-transparency of its IT investments and poor business and IT alignment in general. To boost its EA initiative, the company decided to purchase a specialized software tool for enterprise architecture. For this purpose, its IT leaders studied the available offerings on the EA tool market, contacted most promising vendors, organized meetings with vendor representatives and listened to their presentations. As a result, Techbank had selected and acquired a rather powerful and expensive tool for enterprise architecture from a well-known vendor. Then, the company had installed and configured the tool, established a central repository for storing architectural information and sent its architecture team to a special training supplied by the tool vendor. After the training, architects had documented most areas of the organizational IT landscape and associated business processes in the EA repository and started to update this information to keep it current. Architects were also impressed with the modeling, visualization and analytical capabilities offered by their new EA tool.

However, Techbank’s CIO is sceptical towards the chosen EA tool. He believes that the company is only wasting money on the tool as it is essentially nothing more than a sophisticated repository of current-state information. Furthermore, the tool is used by only 4-5 people in the entire organization (all architects), does not facilitate informed decision-making among business stakeholders in any sense and does not contribute to achieving the original objectives of the EA initiative to improve business and IT alignment.

As a newly manager at Techbank, Techbank’s CIO has asked you to provide a report that addresses the following:

1. Discuss 5 reasons why the implementation of the EA tools at Techbank is NOT a waste of money.
2. Discuss the five key difference between EA Tools and CMDBs(Configuration Management Databases)
3. Based on your lecture notes, discuss 4 archetypes of architects that would be employed at Techbank

Report: Part-II

Data#7 is a diversified, multi-profile company. Essentially, it is a conglomerate company consisting of three diverse strategic units acting as independent businesses under separate brands in different industry sectors: Unit Alpha, Unit Beta and Unit Gamma. Data#7 is governed from the central head office, which oversights the three subsidiary business units and their financial performance indicators, though without any operational interventions. Each strategic business unit has its own managing director with full discretion and responsibility over its competitive strategy, investment priorities, budget allocation and ensuing yearly profits.

Unit Alpha is in the food manufacturing business. The unit produces and distributes a variety of goods including, but not limited to, vegetables, groceries, meat and dairy products. Each of these product lines requires unique production processes, storage arrangements, transportation approaches and underlying equipment and is organizationally implemented by a separate specialized product department. However, these products are delivered largely to the same circle of customers, including both major retailers and local food shops. All product lines are also served by a number of common unit-wide functions, e.g. HR, finance, accounting, logistics, legal, marketing and sales support.

Unit Beta competes in the restaurant business with 450 IT staff. Specifically, the unit controls a chain of small fast-food restaurants occupying the low-cost market niche. In total, the chain includes more than 159 restaurants located in different geographies and more restaurants are planned to be opened in the foreseeable future. All restaurants offer same interiors, menus, prices, meals and services to their customers and imply standardized policies, working procedures and supporting equipment. However, each restaurant is run separately by a chief manager responsible for its overall financial well-being and all necessary business processes, e.g. recruiting, training, procurement, cooking, servicing, cleaning and complaints management. With the exception of Unit Beta’s lean central office, where chain-wide branding, marketing and other strategic decisions are made, the restaurants operate independently from each other and even have their own profit and loss statements.

 

Finally, Unit Gamma runs a chain of resort hotels. These hotels gravitate towards the high-end price

 

segment and offer premium-quality services to their customers. Unit Gamma’s competitive strategy

 

implies improving its brand recognition and achieving consistent customer experience. For this

 

purpose, the unit’s leadership plans to standardize all customer-facing and, to a lesser extent, back-

 

office processes across all hotels of the chain as well as all its suppliers and service providers.

 

Moreover, Unit Gamma also intends to become “closer” to its customers and build lifelong customer

 

relationships. This strategy requires collecting more information about customers, their individual

 

preferences and transaction histories, aggregating this information globally and leveraging it for

 

providing customized services, launching loyalty programs, developing special offers and promoting

 

personalized discounts.

 

As an EA manager at Data#7, you are required to write a report that discusses the following:

 

1. Describe five major roles that OUTLINE as EA Artifacts will play in Data#7.

 

2. Discuss four reasons why outsourcing of EA practice is NOT a good option for Data#7

 

3. Discuss three type of consulting engagement that Data#7 would consider and; recommend consulting engagement that would be approved by Data#7’s CIO

 

4. Discuss 5 reason why implementation of Architecture Debt is very important in Data#7

 

5. Based on IT staff ratio model and degree of decentralization as a factor, name and discuss architects positions that would be required in Unit Beta.

 

 

Note: This should be answered based on the information provided in lecture notes

Report: Part-III

Yepstock is a large financial and stockbroker company. 8 years ago Yepstock decided to establish a full-fledged EA practice to accommodate with the growing problems around non-transparency of its IT investments and poor business and IT alignment in general. The establishment of EA practice was successful, and it was completed last 1 year. Due to recent advancement in technologies, Yepstock wants to implement Cloud Computing technologies that would empower their staff and customers for

 

 

example, implementation of analytical Cloud Computing Technologies that would enable Yepstock staff to approve credit card application within 30 minutes of the submission of the application.

 

However, Yepstock’s CEO is sceptical towards the implementation of cloud computing technologies. He believes that the company is only wasting money on the cloud computing technologies as it is essentially nothing more than a sophisticated collection of data.

 

As a newly promoted IT manager at Yepstock, you are required to write a report that discusses the following:

 

1. Four (4) types of cloud computing that Yepstock could use or implement.

 

2. Five (5) challenges that Yepstock may have with implementation of Cloud Computing Technologies and how the challenges should be resolved.

 

3. Five (5) characteristics of cloud computing and explain 4 major cloud computing services that you would recommend to Yepstock.

 

4. Five (5) IT Governance and IT Service Management, recommend with 5 reasons if COIB or ITIL framework should be implement in Yepstock organization

 

 

Marking Criteria and Rubric: The assessment will be marked out of 100% and will be weighted 40% of the total unit mark

 

Marking Criteria	Not satisfactory	Satisfactory	Good	Very Good	Excellent
	(0-49%) of the	(50-64%) of the	(65-74%) of the	(75-84%) of the	(85-100%) of the
	criterion mark)	criterion mark	criterion mark	criterion mark	criterion mark
Report Part-I: Case	Not identifying the	Problems are	Most of the	All the problems are	All the problems are
Study	problems, provided	identified very	problems are	identified, provides	clearly identified,
(30% marks)	solution is very weak.	briefly, provided	identified, provide	very good solutions,	provided excellent
		solution is acceptable	good solutions,	examines the EA	solutions and EA very
		but details missing,	examine the EA but	clearly	clearly
		briefly examine the	major points are
		EA	missing
Report Part-II:	Questions on Report	Questions on Report	Questions on Report	Shows sound	Shows full
(30% marks)	Part II is poorly	Part II is answered	Part II is adequately	knowledge,	knowledge on EA
	examine in the	but details missing,	addressed,	identification,	practice,
	relation of EA	comparison	comparison	comparison	identification,
		presented briefly,	presented in detail,	presented in detail,	comparison
		very briefly examine	briefly examine the	comprehensively	presented in detail,
		the relation of EA	relation of EA	examine the relation	very
				of EA	comprehensively
					examine the relation
					of EA
Report Part-III:	Questions on Report	Questions on Report	Questions on Report	Comprehensive	Comprehensive
(30% marks)	Part III is poorly	Part III is answered	Part III is adequately	analysis of situation	analysis of situation
	examine in the in	but details missing,	addressed,	and provide correct	and provide correct
	relation of EA	comparison	comparison	solutions with	solutions with
		presented briefly,	presented in detail,	explanation.	excellent
		very briefly examine	briefly examine in		explanation.
		in the relation of EA	the relation of EA

 

 

Structure,	The report is poorly	The report shows	The report is	The report is	The report is
grammar,	organized and	some organization.	generally well	generally well	coherently organized
presentation, and	difficult to read –	At times, difficult to	organized and most	organized and most	and the logic is easy
Harvard style	does not flow	read and does not	of the argument is	of the argument is	to follow. There are
	logically from one		easy to follow. There
referencing (10%		flow logically from		easy to follow. There	no spelling or
marks).	part to another. There	one part to another.	are some spelling	are only a few minor	grammatical errors
	are several spelling	There are some	and/or grammatical	spelling or	and terminology is
	and/or grammatical		errors; technical
		spelling and/or		grammatical errors,	clearly defined.
	errors; technical		terms are generally
		grammatical errors;		or terms are not	Writing is clear and
	terms may not be		are poorly defined.
		technical terms are		clearly defined.	concise and
	defined or are poorly		Writing is mostly
	defined. Writing	generally are poorly	clear but may lack	Writing is mostly	persuasive. Harvard
	lacks clarity and	defined. Includes	conciseness. All	clear. All references	formatting style and
	conciseness. Include	Few references with	references cited	cited correctly using	citation of references
	few references	errors.	correctly using	citation style.	in the body of the
	without following		citation style with		report.
	Harvard style		some minor errors.
	reference guidelines
	or no reference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assessment 3: Quiz

 

Due date:	Week 2, 4, 6, 8, 10
Group/individual:	Individual
Word count / Time provided:	30 minutes
Weighting:	30%
Unit Learning Outcomes:	ULO1, ULO2, ULO-3, ULO-4, ULO-5

 

 

Assessment Details:

 

This quiz will assess your knowledge of key content areas (Week 1 to Week 10 contents) and to identify further support needs. For successful completion of the quiz, you are required to study the material provided (lecture slides, tutorials, and reading materials), engage in the unit’s activities, and in the discussion forums. The prescribed textbook is the main reference along with the recommended reading material. By completing this assessment successfully, you will be able to identify key aspects of Enterprise Architecture.

 

Marking Information: The quiz will be marked out of 100 and will be weighted 30% of the total unit mark.