Using enterprise architecture to guide application change management

Information systems (IS) are frequently modified according to changes in enterprise business and operating models and other internal and external factors that influence the enterprise. The changes are systematically managed following the engineering change management (ECM) process. The main issue in the ECM process is that the IS changes and their impact frequently are not evaluated with respect to the overall enterprise architecture (EA) and its evolution strategy. This paper proposes an outline of an approach for evaluation the changes with respect to EA development goals. The proposed approach links aspects of operational change management and strategic EA management. The evaluation process is triggered by IS change requests, which are mapped to the current EA, multiple change request implementation scenarios are identified by analyzing relationships in the EA, and alignment of each scenario with EA evolution strategy is accessed using appropriate measures. In this paper an initial illustration of the approach is provided.