On names - the best I have heard over the years was the "Simplification Office" -
Great name! The best label is – IT Planning and Architecture or if you are keen to stir up the business people - Enterprise Planning and Architecture but consider what you are being brought into the organisation to achieve and use a label that reflects that.
On implementation - think short cycle iterations. Don't think of what you are doing is creating "THE" anything just focus on what, how and when. What I mean by this is identify critical pain points in the organisation and key strategic imperatives and pick 3-5 things you are going to solve using EA in this iteration (I would limit yourself to 6 months) :> this is step 1 SCOPE.
Then plan out how you are going to address these things - future state/current state/ close the gap. Analysing and modelling how do I change …….the way I do business, the way I manage and use information and the supporting technology and solution portfolios ….to solve this problem or execute this strategy. :> this is step 2 ARCHITECTING.
Ensure that Close the Gap is being wisely executed within the PMO. Then evaluate what worked what didn't and make sure all the architectural information you created in step 2 is sorted according to your framework/taxonomy, shared and communicated widely. Make changes to the things that did not work well :> this is step 3 VALIDATE
Celebrate your success - loudly - and start all over again.
What you will achieve with this approach is the continuos development of THE enterprise architecture while remaining topical and solving real world problems for your organisation. If you commence an EA program thinking you are creating THE enterprise architecture and methodically go about doing that you end up not focussing your skills and energy on what is important to the organisation – very risky and IMHO just plain stupid. If there is one lesson we have learnt in the past 12 years is that EA for EA’s sake is a waste of time – if you are not helping your company move forward then stop doing what you are doing.
The simple iteration approach is the one that I have seen consistently work well – where many of the others you mention often fail.
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