The General Accounting Office (GAO) developed a framework for enterprise architecture management and reviewed its use in 116 federal agencies. GAO surveyed the agencies' development, implementation, and maintenance of enterprise architecture, as well as OMB’s actions to oversee these efforts.

The 116 agencies completed a questionnaire on the core elements of effective enterprise architecture management; namely, elements that demonstrate organizational commitment (policies), elements that provide the capability to satisfy the commitment (roles and responsibilities), elements that demonstrate satisfaction of the commitment (plans and products), and elements that verify satisfaction of the commitment (measurements).

GAO's results
The agencies' responses to these core elements were arranged into five hierarchical stages:

5: leveraging enterprise architecture for managing change (highest)
4: completing architecture products
3: developing architecture products
2: building enterprise architecture management foundation
1: creating enterprise architecture awareness (lowest)

While the GAO report said that enterprise architecture is a work in progress, it also yielded positive results for the U.S. Customs Service. Customs was the only federal agency to score 5 in all categories of the GAO survey. Four other agencies scored 4 and the remaining agencies didn't even come close. Ninety-eight agencies reported meeting the minimum criteria necessary for stages 1 or 2 - creating enterprise architecture awareness or building an enterprise architecture management foundation. In contrast, only five reviewed agencies reported implementing practices that GAO believes are needed to effectively manage enterprise architecture activities (stages 4 or 5).

"Customs scored the highest in all categories of this study because we develop enterprise architecture for our information technology projects, we faithfully use it, and Customs executives support it because they understand its importance," says S. W. Hall, Jr., Assistant Commissioner, Office of Information and Technology.

Overall, GAO credits Customs for instituting a capital planning and investment control process, setting up an enterprise architecture, and complying with that architecture, and progressing through necessary reviews by the Customs Investment Review Board, the Treasury Department, and the Office of Management and Budget.

Customs has come a long way
Since 1997 Customs has worked continuously to improve its IT strategic planning and IT investment review processes. Customs has come a long way thanks to the ability of its employees, especially the efforts of the OIT Strategic Planning Staff that is responsible for the Enterprise Architecture and the IT Investment Management Process. The following from GAO says it all: "Enterprise architecture efforts have matured to the point that they can be considered effective, with only one agency, the Customs Service, attaining the highest stage of maturity."

See the April 2001 issue of U.S. Customs Today for more information on Customs enterprise architecture process.