Enterprise Architecture Maturity Models

There must be some kind of thread about maturity models crossing the LCD panels of enterprise architects this week. I was again asked for an EA maturity model. I reflexively reached for a couple of the already published maturity models, stopped myself, and asked the question, "EA the noun or EA the verb?"

Apparently, the customer would like an assessment of the maturity of their enterprise architecture, the noun.

This is actually more of a challenge since almost all of the maturity models out there are process-oriented, not product oriented. CMMi is a perfect example. CMMi is product and quality agnostic. GIGO. It's completely possible to build CMMi Level 5 compliant lead-lined lifejackets. The same goes for just about any other process-based maturity model. Not very helpful when the only thing that really counts is the quality of the results, a fact most process weenies seem to forget (or overlook because that's really hard work). Of course, almost all of the EA maturity models (NASICO, Open Group, EAMMF, etc.) are either direct adaptations of CMMi or embed a lot of CMMi in them.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the E2AMM. It didn't surprise me that it's out of Europe at all. The Europeans are so far ahead of the Americas (both continents) in terms of EA it's almost embarassing. No, it is embarassing. Anyhow, I'm going to take a close look at this model to see if it is applicable to this particular customer's needs. I'll post my observations here, later.