Exemplifying a framework for interrelating enterprise architecture concerns

In recent years, enterprise architecture (EA) management has gained increasing attention as means to support enterprises in adapting to changing markets and in seizing new business opportunities. A multitude of approaches and frameworks making prescriptions on how to document the different states of the EA have been developed. These approaches target different purposes and correspondingly different concerns (areas of interest) in the architecture. Hence, an enterprise seeking to develop or evolve an organization-specific EA documentation technique most likely runs into difficulties to understand the interdependencies between different frameworks and approaches. The paper addresses the aforementioned challenge by presenting a framework for EA concern interrelations, which can be used to systematically analyze the concern relationships of different approaches. The applicability of the framework is demonstrated by means of a case study from the automotive industry, in which the framework is used for the development and enhancement of an EA description for risk management.