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Contents on this page: - History of EA - EA now | 
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History of EA
The history of EA goes back to the Zachman framework 
of the 1980s. The framework describes an organization using the basic "who, what, when, why, where, and how" questions. Describing the organization this way helps show how much of the organization's work is actually accomplishing its mission. The description becomes a model of the organization to be analyzed.
The main push for EA in the federal government came in 1996, along with the Clinger-Cohen Act requiring department CIOs to let business needs drive technology buys. Read more about that act and other acts requiring better IT investments on this GAO page .
In February 2002, the GAO published a report to Congressional committees on improving EA across the federal government. The report said that federal EA efforts were immature, and federal organizations were at risk of making a bad problem worse by investing in more incompatible and redundant IT.
Many of the 2002 Presidential initiatives were closely tied to EA. In the summer of 2002, OMB launched the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) with the federal Business Reference Model (BRM). These federal models are the basis for the DOI EA. Read the introduction to the FEA models by Mark Forman (OMB's associate director for IT and e-government.)
EA Now
EA is not the same as previous efforts; it is driven by business, not the latest technology. The circumstances also have changed since previous efforts:
- Since the GAO report, there is now more OMB oversight of, and pressure for, EA
- Because of workforce planning, organizations are having to do more with less
- Some areas have "retirement bubbles", where a lot of corporate memory will be lost over a short time
- The speed at which technology is developed and outdated is faster