UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The Federation of Enterprise Architecture Professional Organizations (FEAPO), which is led by Brian Cameron, executive director of the Center for Enterprise Architecture (EA) at Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) held the Summit on the Enterprise Architecture Profession in early May at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel. FEAPO is a worldwide association of professional organizations which have come together to provide a forum to standardize, professionalize and otherwise advance the discipline of enterprise architecture. Representatives from a diverse array of organizations met at the conference to more precisely define EA and chart a course for the profession.
“FEAPO is being called the most significant development in the EA profession in over a decade,” said Cameron, who serves as the founding president of the organization. “This event further establishes the Center for EA as a global thought leader in the EA profession.”
Enterprise architecture is the process of translating business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating and improving the key requirements, principles and models that describe the enterprise’s future state and enable its evolution. By integrating the various dimensions of an organization, an enterprise architect takes a company's business strategy and defines an information technology system to support that strategy.
The purpose of the Center for Enterprise Architecture, which launched in January 2011, is to gather intellectual resources across Penn State to address research concerns and questions that span the design, functioning and governance of contemporary, information-driven enterprises.
The purpose of FEAPO, which also launched in January 2011, is to provide a forum to discuss cross-organizational activities to standardize, professionalize and otherwise advance the discipline of EA.
“We are getting inquiries from all over the world as a result of these activities and notice from the United Nations, the White House and others,” Cameron said.
The main purpose of the conference, he said, was to “refine and ratify two foundational documents for the EA profession that we've been developing over the last six months: (1) a joint perspective/definitional paper that describes what EA is and the value that it brings to an organization -- this information will go into Wikipedia as we assume the editorship for the EA page -- and (2) a start at a career path and related competencies for different types of EA-related professions. Architecture and Governance magazine is doing a special issue on the summit and will be publishing the products of this event.”
Due to FEAPO’s increasing prominence, Cameron said, he has been invited to serve on a planning board for the EA Body of Knowledge (BOK) effort funded by MITRE, a public interest company that works in partnership with the government in applying systems engineering and advanced technology to address issues of national importance.
“This effort will have many synergies with the FEAPO career path and competency work over time,” Cameron said. “Being the only university invited to be part of this planning group puts the college, the Center for EA and our academic programs in a unique position of visibility.”