OMB: Most agency architectures are effective

Most of the 25 largest federal agencies see benefits in their investment control processes from their enterprise architectures, according to the Office of Management and Budget's chief architect.

Richard Burk, speaking last week at an event sponsored by Computer Marketing Associates Inc. of Vienna, Va., said OMB finished assessing agency submissions and "the scores were pretty good."

"Now that they have architectures in place, they need to use them to show results," he said. "We are pressing agencies to do just that."

Burk said most agencies' enterprise architectures scored at least a three out of a five rating on OMB's maturity model. OMB released its EA Assessment Framework in April 2004 and updated it last April. Burk said Version 2 should be finished by March 2006.

"We have spent a fair amount of time working and evaluating agency EAs to make sure they are useful," Burk said. "That means we see a connection between the business cases and the EA so we know it is a legitimate investment."

Burk would not comment on which agencies didn't fare well but did say most of them had trouble organizing their data.

The departments of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency are among the agencies with solid enterprise architectures, Burk added.

Jason Miller is an assistant managing editor of Washington Technology's sister publication, Government Computer News.