On Supporting Collaborative Problem Solving in Enterprise Architecture Creation

Abstract

Creating enterprise architecture can be perceived as a creative problem solving task, since it involves managing organizational complexity and inflexibility by devising a synergic solution from all organizational units. Creative (or collaborative) problem solving in several fields has been supported by supplementing domain specific techniques with functionalities of a Group Support System (GSS). This paper aims to demonstrate how GSSs can also be used to support collaborative problem solving in enterprise architecture creation. Using the Design Science research methodology, a method was designed to support collaborative problem solving during architecture creation. This method draws from enterprise architecture approaches that are used in practice, and collaborative problem solving theories in academia. It has been evaluated using an experiment and two real life cases. This paper presents findings from this evaluation. The findings were used to refine the method, and they indicate that the effectiveness of academia-based artifacts in addressing problems encountered in practice, can only be achieved through continuous and diverse evaluation of these artifacts in practice.