Enterprise Architects Should Play Different Roles

Enterprise architecture (EA) offers ways to steer and guide the design and evolution of the enterprise, including its information technology (IT). One of the objectives of EA is to support IT decision-making. This study aims to provide EA researchers and practitioners with insight into the linkages between IT decisions and discuss the implications for EA. For this purpose, we carried out a case study in which we analyzed possible linkages between 265 IT decisions. We used a framework that makes a distinction between sequential, precursive and lateral linkages. By reconstructing issue streams of IT decisions we identified the three types of linkages that apply to real situations and analyzed the implications for EA. We argue that each type of linkage requires a different role from EA. Sequential linkages require a high level design, precursive linkages require anticipating guidance and lateral linkages require a devil's advocate.