Enterprise Architecture

Use this skill to make enterprise-wide structure and change legible without turning architecture into a shelf of diagrams. Connect outcomes to capabilities, value streams, applications, information, technology, ownership, and a feasible sequence of change.

Workflow

1. Frame the enterprise question. State the outcome, scope, time horizon, stakeholders, constraints, authority, and evidence gaps. Separate strategy, product commitments, operational facts, and architectural hypotheses.
2. Map the landscape. Identify capabilities and value streams, then relate applications, information objects, technology dependencies, owners, costs, risks, duplication, and lifecycle status. Use references/capability-value-stream-and-portfolio-mapping.md.
3. Describe states. Record the current state from evidence, define a target state from explicit principles and outcomes, and identify constraints that make a direct jump unsafe or unrealistic. Use references/current-target-and-transition-architecture.md.
4. Choose the operating model. Compare centralized, federated, and hybrid arrangements against decision locality, coordination cost, required coherence, skills, and risk. Do not prescribe reporting lines or compensation. Use references/enterprise-operating-model-and-roles.md.
5. Make authority executable. Assign decision rights, consultation, standards, exceptions, escalation, and feedback to named roles. Use references/federated-governance-and-decision-rights.md.
6. Engage and publish for use. Adapt views to stakeholder jobs, make uncertainty and provenance visible, and maintain accessible, findable information with a review owner. Use references/stakeholder-engagement-and-architecture-information.md.
7. Sequence change. Connect transition increments to capabilities, outcomes, dependencies, investment assumptions, and exit evidence. Use templates/transition-architecture-roadmap.md; hand approved delivery plans to implementation-planning or migration-engineering as appropriate.

Output Contract

Produce an enterprise context brief, capability/application portfolio view, current-target-transition assessment, operating-model and decision-rights record, or transition roadmap. Every material claim must be labeled as evidence, assumption, decision, or open question and have a source or named owner.

Ownership Boundaries

• System boundaries, runtime behavior, architecture characteristics, and solution tradeoffs belong to software-architecture.
• API contracts and API portfolio mechanics belong to api-design-and-evolution.
• Data platforms, data products, data models, and data governance belong to data-architect.
• Reporting structures, team topology, talent, compensation, and culture belong to org-design; this skill records organizational dependencies without designing HR systems.
• Product bets, product outcomes, and product sequencing belong to product-roadmapping-and-portfolio.
• Technology adoption posture, build-versus-buy, standards, and technology governance mechanics belong to technology-radar.
• Corporate direction, competitive choices, capital allocation, and M&A belong to strategy-frameworks.
• Process optimization and operational execution belong to operational-design; enterprise architecture may use its findings as evidence.
• Approved cross-system execution belongs to implementation-planning and migration-engineering, not this skill.
• Cross-project program coordination, shared capacity, integrated benefits, and transformation delivery belong to technical-program-management; this skill provides the architecture evidence and decision-rights inputs.

When Not To Use

Use the narrow owner when the request has no enterprise portfolio, cross-domain alignment, operating-model, or transition-architecture question. Do not use this skill to produce a solution design, organization chart, product roadmap, technology radar entry, data architecture, API contract, or corporate strategy verdict.

Reference Guide

Decision point	Load
Mapping capabilities, value streams, applications, information, or duplication	references/capability-value-stream-and-portfolio-mapping.md
Comparing current, target, and transition states	references/current-target-and-transition-architecture.md
Selecting an enterprise operating model and defining architecture roles	references/enterprise-operating-model-and-roles.md
Assigning decision rights, standards, exceptions, or escalation	references/federated-governance-and-decision-rights.md
Interviewing stakeholders or publishing usable architecture information	references/stakeholder-engagement-and-architecture-information.md
Establishing scope and evidence	templates/enterprise-context-brief.md
Creating a portfolio view	templates/capability-portfolio-view.md
Sequencing target-state change	templates/transition-architecture-roadmap.md
Checking provenance and transformation constraints	references/source-index.md

Completion

Stop when the enterprise scope and decision owner are explicit, the portfolio and state claims have evidence or named gaps, transition increments have dependencies and exit evidence, decision rights include conflict handling, and specialist handoffs are recorded. Escalate unresolved authority or strategy conflicts rather than resolving them by assumption.