CEA-C01 key terms

A discipline that describes an organization's structure, processes, information, and technology in an integrated way so that business goals can guide deliberate change across the whole enterprise rather than in isolated pockets.

A structured collection of concepts, conventions, and guidance that establishes how architecture descriptions are organized and expressed, so that different teams can produce consistent, comparable, and reusable architecture work.

The documented set of work products that expresses an architecture for a defined purpose and audience. It is the tangible deliverable produced by architecture work, distinct from the architecture itself.

A structured representation, such as a grid or set of layers, that a framework uses to classify architecture content and show how different kinds of concerns relate to one another across the enterprise.

A broad area of concern within an architecture, such as business, data, application, or technology, that groups related models and decisions so each can be developed and governed with appropriate expertise.

A horizontal level within a framework model that separates concerns by abstraction, typically placing business-level concepts above information and application concepts, and technology infrastructure at the base.

A specification of the conventions for constructing and using a view, defining what concerns it addresses, what stakeholders it serves, and what kinds of models and notations are appropriate.

The actual representation of part of an architecture, produced by applying a viewpoint, that makes selected aspects of the architecture understandable to a particular audience.

A person, group, or organization with an interest in the architecture because it affects their needs, responsibilities, or outcomes. Stakeholders drive which views and quality attributes the architecture must address.

A matter of interest or importance to one or more stakeholders, such as cost, security, timeliness, or regulatory compliance, that the architecture description must address to be useful.

A simplified, purposeful representation of some subject that captures selected aspects relevant to a question while deliberately omitting detail judged irrelevant to that purpose.

A model of the modeling language itself, defining the allowable element types, their properties, and the relationships permitted between them so that models within a framework stay consistent.

The set of symbols, syntax, and graphical or textual conventions used to express a model so that its meaning can be read consistently by people other than its author.

A general, enduring statement of preferred direction that guides architecture decisions and design choices, giving decision-makers a consistent basis for resolving trade-offs without prescribing a specific solution.

The set of practices, roles, and decision rights by which an organization directs, reviews, and enforces architecture decisions, ensuring change aligns with principles and target outcomes.

A cross-functional body of decision-makers responsible for reviewing architecture proposals, resolving escalations, and maintaining the integrity of architecture standards across the enterprise.

A structured check that a proposed or delivered solution conforms to agreed architecture standards, principles, and target-state direction, with deviations recorded and escalated as needed.

The documented architecture as it exists at a defined point in time, used as the starting reference against which planned changes and progress toward a target are measured.

The description of the desired future architecture that the organization intends to reach, expressed clearly enough to guide investment, design, and sequencing decisions.

An intermediate, internally consistent architecture that the enterprise intends to reach at a defined stage on the way from baseline to target, allowing value to be delivered incrementally.

A structured comparison of the baseline and target architectures that identifies missing, changed, or redundant elements and the work needed to move between the two states.

A time-sequenced plan of work packages and transitions that shows how the organization will move from its current state to target states, including dependencies and milestones.

A roadmap specifically expressed in architecture terms, linking planned transitions and work packages to the architecture elements and capabilities they deliver over time.

A concise, high-level statement of the desired future state and the value it delivers, used to secure sponsorship, align stakeholders, and scope the architecture work that follows.

A statement of a needed capability or constraint that the architecture must satisfy, derived from stakeholder concerns and business drivers, and traceable to the elements that realize it.

The documented linkage between requirements and the architecture elements that satisfy them, enabling impact analysis when requirements or designs change.

An ability of the enterprise to achieve a particular outcome, described in terms of what it does rather than how it is implemented, and often used to organize planning and investment.

A structured, usually hierarchical catalog of an enterprise's capabilities that provides a stable business-oriented view for prioritizing investments and aligning change initiatives.

The end-to-end sequence of activities that delivers value to a customer or stakeholder, used to identify where capabilities are exercised and where improvement effort should focus.

A reusable, well-defined component of architecture content that represents a potentially useful element of the enterprise and can be combined with others to describe solutions.

A concrete implementation element that realizes one or more architecture building blocks in a specific solution, conforming to the specification the architecture building block defines.

A reusable architecture template for a domain or problem class that captures proven structure and standards, providing a starting point that projects tailor rather than build from scratch.

A named, reusable solution to a recurring architecture problem in a given context, describing the arrangement of elements and the trade-offs it implies.

The systematic examination of architecture content against criteria such as stakeholder requirements, principles, cost, risk, and quality attributes, to support decisions and identify issues.

A structured comparison of competing options against weighted criteria, making the costs, benefits, and risks of each explicit so decision-makers can choose with full awareness of consequences.

A measurable, non-functional characteristic of a system or architecture, such as performance, availability, security, or modifiability, that shapes design choices and must be tested against scenarios.

A governed store of architecture descriptions, models, standards, and related reference material that supports reuse, version control, and consistent access across the organization.

A measure of how well established and consistently practiced an organization's architecture capability is, typically assessed against staged levels covering process, governance, and value delivery.

The organization's overall ability to perform architecture work effectively, encompassing skills, methods, tools, governance, and the funding and mandate to influence change.