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Download the complete Bureau of Temporary Relocation's "EA Management Plan" here.
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Bureau of Temporary Relocation Enterprise Architecture Management Plan
March 2006
Bureau of Temporary Relocation (BTR) Enterprise Architecture Management Plan
Table of Contents
Section 1 Bureau of Temporary Relocation EA Program Management 1.2 Support for Strategy and Business 1.3 EA Program Roles and Responsibilities 1.5 EA Program Performance Measures Section 2 Current Architecture Summary 2.1 Strategic Goals and Initiatives 2.2 Business Processes and Information Flows Section 3 Future Architecture Summary 3.3 Updating Current & Future Views Section 4 Glossary and References
Bureau of Temporary Relocation EA Repository
The Bureau of Temporary Relocation (BTR) is designed to provide a strategic ready reserve of housing and shelter for citizens during times of natural emergency, infrastructure failure, terrorist activities or any event requiring relocation of large numbers of people. This capability has been established as part of a strategic capability that will be linked to key agencies within the U.S. Government. Our EA is a valuable tool in our ability to better manage our mission today and in the future.
Mission:
Provide safe and secure temporary housing to individuals and families evacuated or displaced from an area or region due to a disaster, either natural or manmade, while communities are made safe and housing is rebuilt.
Vision:
When disaster strikes at home, Americans must have a plan for response and recovery. During individual disasters, such as house fires, individuals have personal plans, neighbors depend on neighbors and families on families. But when the disaster encompasses an entire area or region, these individual disaster plans are overwhelmed. Transportation systems become clogged, resources such as food and water become scarce, housing is destroyed or made uninhabitable, and rebuilding is slowed due to the volume required. That is when the Bureau of Temporary Relocation, in conjunction with FEMA, the Department of Transportation, along with other federal, state, local and private organizations, must provide a safety net to support individuals and families through the disaster and recovery.
The Vision of the Bureau of Temporary Relocation is to provide quality housing and support services for temporarily displaced communities.
The direction BTR’s EA Program is articulated in the four major sections of this EA Management Plan, describing Governance and Principles, Current and Future Architectures, followed by a glossary and references. Links are provided to the EA Repository to providing additional detail where appropriate.
Section 1 Bureau of Temporary Relocation EA Program Management
This document articulates the management of the Bureau of Temporary Relocation (BTR) Enterprise Architecture Program (EA Program). This program is intended to align and unify BTR’s Strategic Initiatives, Business Processes, Information Flows, Systems and Services, and Technology Infrastructure with the goal of ensuring that all major initiatives, processes, projects, IT standards and investments support BTR’s stated Mission, Vision, and Strategic Goals and Objectives. All EA issues such as IT investment proposals, project reviews, document approvals, and standards adoption/waivers will be processed and evaluated by the process outlined in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Requirements Approval Flow Diagram
In support of this EA Programs goal of improved planning, decision making capability and communications, BTR will fully support the open sharing of information across lines of business, except where confidentiality, contracts, agencies, and/or other discretion prohibit such sharing.
The BTR EA Program will strive to involve stakeholders at all appropriate levels throughout the enterprise. These steps will be essential to achieve maximum buy in and on-going support of the program.
BTR recognizes technology as part of an overall business strategy and is committed to investing in technologies that will fully support its Mission, Vision, and Strategic Objectives. All potential investments in technology will be vetted, and those not aligned with this goal will not be funded.
In the interest of better supporting information sharing, BTR will attempt to invest in Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS), non-proprietary products that emphasize open standards and heterogeneity.
The deployment of this EA Program will allow for optimal planning whether it be a top-down or bottom-up approach by bringing together different perspectives of business and technology throughout the enterprise. Decision-making capabilities are enhanced by providing comprehensive views of current capabilities and resources while keeping in mind a number of future scenarios that may require changes in processes and resources. Lastly, the EA Program provides for improved communication throughout the enterprise. Open information sharing and the wealth of knowledge provided by the EA repository allows on demand access to current, pertinent information to best support the enterprise.
1.2 Support for Strategy and Business
One of the primary goals of the EA Program is to support BTR’s enterprise strategic goals, business plans, and to identify performance gaps which can be closed through the alignment of Strategic Initiatives, Business Processes, Information Flows, Systems and Services, and Technology Infrastructure. By aligning these areas of the business, costs can be reduced dramatically while streamlining business activities and avoiding duplicate systems and effort, ultimately improving support to the citizens. Specific performance benefits and direct cost savings achieved by the EA Program are articulated in later sections. The goals and initiatives can be found in the EA Repository.
1.3 EA Program Roles and Responsibilities
The following table identifies the stakeholders of the EA Program, their roles, and responsibilities.
Table 1: Roles and Responsibilities
These figures represent the budget for the EA program taking into account the current scope of the program. The EA program is ongoing and maintaining funding is important in keeping EA information up-to-date and useful.
BTR EA Program Budget 2006-2007
The Enterprise Architecture Program budget is a subcomponent of the BTR Investment Portfolio available in the EA Repository.
1.5 EA Program Performance Measures
Costs for current architecture, including hardware and application support, have been baselined using metrics from other federal agencies and the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework supplementation guidance. Financial Return on Investment (ROI) achieved by the program will be measured annually against this baseline.
Besides costs, a number of other ROI areas will be measured. Value can be provided by the EA Program in the areas of systems integration, a reduced number of enterprise applications, focus of IT projects within the environment (i.e. Are they meeting cost/schedule/performance goals), and general user satisfaction. The EA Program will track performance in these areas quantitatively and qualitatively by measuring changes in projects undertaken, applications deployed/decommissioned, systems integration and user survey results. These findings will be reported to the Chief Architect. The Chief Architect is responsible for ensuring that IM/IT efforts support the performance measures as defined by BTR leadership and formally defined in the Performance Measurement tab of the EA Repository.
Section 2 Current Architecture Summary
2.1 Strategic Goals and Initiatives
BTR’s overall Strategic Goals and Initiatives are available in the EA Repository.
The table below shows a mapping of specific strategic goals to strategic initiatives and then those initiatives to the supporting EA components.
Staging Area
Table 2: Strategic Goals and Initiatives (Staging Area)
Temporary Housing Facilities
Table 3: Strategic Goals and Initiatives (Temporary Housing Facilities)
2.2 Business Processes and Information Flows
The EA Program is designed to improve business process analysis and identify and optimize information flow within and between these processes. The Lines of Business (LOB) provide the foundation for aligning the IT structure and services.
BTR’s current lines of business (LOBs) are shown in the graphic below.
The table below tracks BTR’s LOBs to key processes supporting those LOBs, including information flows between systems and finally the supporting EA components. The EA program strives to ensure that EA components are worth their investment by supporting business services.
Table 4: Business Processes and Information Flows
In-depth Line of Business and Information Flow details can be found in the EA Repository.
BTR has a complete suite of systems and services which support the flow of information between all of BTR’s lines of business. This is a blend of COTS and in-house developed applications, web interfaces and backend databases which seamlessly integrate and support the goals and strategy of the organization. Where possible, open standards and solutions are being used. Systems and services are organized into the following areas: Support Services, Front and Backend Office Systems, and IT Inventory. Efforts are ongoing to monitor systems and handle potential performance or scalability issues before they become a threat to user productivity and satisfaction.
BTR’s technology infrastructure is summarized in three key areas: Common Operating Environment, WAN & LAN, and IT Standards.
A Common Operating Environment (COE) provides a uniform configuration of hardware and software throughout an enterprise to eliminate software and data incompatibilities and improve troubleshooting. Details of BTR’s COE can be viewed in the EA Repository. . BTR’s WAN & LAN Infrastructure and IT Standards information is also available in the EA Repository.
Substantial effort has been made to coordinate these IT architectures to maximize the flow of Voice, Data and Video. The infrastructure seamlessly integrates technologies such that collaboration can be performed at virtually all locations in the Enterprise.
Cost/Benefit analyses have driven BTR to a 95 to 99% uptime standard on most non-critical systems. Critical systems currently have a 99.99% uptime standard, and BTR is working to increase that standard to 99.999% with an eventual goal of 99.9999%. Only completely redundant datacenters in disparate locations will increase reliability further.
All critical systems are scalable, at minimum, to twice the capacity needs of the 5 year Enterprise growth projection estimates. Non-critical systems vary greatly in terms of scalability.
Cost efficiency also varies greatly system to system. See Section 1: Governance and Principles for Enterprise standards regarding the purchase of new technologies.
Duplicate services and redundancy in Technology Infrastructure systems have been reduced by 10% since beginning the implementation of this Enterprise Architecture program. BTR’s goal is to reduce redundancy and duplication by an additional 20%.
Security and confidentiality within the BTR technology infrastructure is paramount to the success of the business. BTR will emphasize the availability of secure systems which provide user-level and two-factor authentication, all forms of encryption appropriate to the technology, digital signatures and non-repudiation. Due diligence in every area will be observed to ensure the confidentiality of our data. Stakeholder knowledge of the importance of security is emphasized to further support these initiatives.
BTR’s security documentation can be viewed in three key areas: Security Policy, Data Privacy, and EA Standards.
BTR believes in the creation of and adherence to technical standards in order to maximize interoperability/compatibility, reduce costs, and maintain a more adaptable information technology infrastructure. BTR’s Enterprise Architecture Standards can be found in the EA Repository. These standards are used when considering the addition of any new EA component.
Staffing requirements are necessary components of any IT-related project pursued by BTR. To the extent possible, specific qualifications for each staff position are also required. BTR staff managers are to fill these positions with only qualified personnel. Workforce requirements planning will incorporate turnover, vacations, and sick leave to the extent possible. Project employees will maintain an on-going training regimen to maintain and enhance the skills required to support the project. Training regimens will be components of and fully funded by the project’s budget.
Section 3 Future Architecture Summary
BTR introduces “Just in Time (JiT)” Housing Program featuring the new Disaster Relief Victims (DRV) Debit Card. This Program is an extension of BTR’s temporary relocation centers (military bases or facilities) and its key component to supporting this program is the DRV Card. BTR will maintain and monitor a database that avails a list, via the internet, of all caretakers and dwelling facilities throughout the United States that have met FEMA and BTR requirements and are eligible to participate in the “Just in Time” Program. This database will provide an opportunity for victims to find a caretaker or dwelling facility that matches their special needs or preference (wheel chair accessibility to home or facility, non-smoker, etc.) in a loving environment. Under the JIT Program, caretakers will receive a fixed monthly fee for use of their home during an established and approved timeframe (6 months), whereas dwelling facility will get there payment directly by victim’s use of Disaster Relief Victims (DRV) Card.
After Disaster Relief Victims have been processed, they will be issued a DRV Debit/Credit -Visa/Master Card. This card will provide a means for the dispersal of funds to victims and will allow the victims to have access to resources that provide food, clothing, shelter, and transportation to meet their basic needs immediately. Details involving the issuance and appropriate use of the DRV card, the amount that victims will receive, how often they will receive it and for how long will be based upon newly developed standards and guidelines, and of course the new location in which the victim resides (locality adjustment.)
Funds will be allocated on the DRV card for victims to establish a P.O. Box and work closely with the United States Postal Service to ensure that all victims be assigned a P.O Box as a secondary address on all FEMA or American Red Cross forms (A process Change Strategy). The P.O. Box number should be entered in Agency’s database to ensure that victims would have access to his/her mail wherever he chooses to reside. This will ensure that victims, who are temporarily living in a relocation center, public dwelling facility or with a caretaker, would have a designated place to receive mail.
Benefits of the JiT Program, featuring the DRV Card:
Victims will have: · Access to public/private dwelling information immediately throughout the U.S via the internet · An immediate method of payment for food, water, clothing, dwelling, and transportation · Flexibility and more options · Identification Card (picture on DRV card) · Sense of independence and normalcy
Agency will: · Make more facilities available for victims to choose · Maintain a centralized database that provides agency with pertinent information on all victims · Have access to allocation of funds/financial records of DRV card users · Faster and efficient processes to distribute funds
This scenario requires significant change in dispersing BTR’s relocation efforts to areas other than the traditional centralized relocation facilities. Many areas, such as administrative, medical and support personnel, supplies, transpiration, and communications and information technology will need to be managed over a large and disjoint geographical area. BTR feels that these challenges are worth the effort if the end result is an easier and less traumatic relocation process for the end user, the citizens.
The planning assumptions of BTR in the future, given possible changes in administration and possible installation change requirements affected by continued Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) efforts, the current market conditions and changes in property holdings within the BTR portfolio can be found in the EA Repository.
3.3 Updating Current & Future Views
The Future Scenario indicates the current and future views of BTR and provides a vision of where relocation services and dislocation persons management need to go in the future. By looking forward BTR will be able to adjust funding and strategy to meet changes needed as the result of lessons learned and changes to real estate holding for the eight planned relocation centers.
3.4 Sequencing Plan
Yet to be determined.
BTR will follow standard processes by which changes in the EA configuration will be made. EA standards will be followed strictly. EA Standards may be waived but only upon satisfying the following standards waiver process.
Figure 2: Standards Waiver Process
See Section 1 Governance and Principles, Figure 1 for investment criteria process flow. Document version control is strictly enforced by the BTR Architecture Management Board—a working group overseen by the Chief Architect—and a rotating group of Enterprise stakeholders within the EA Program. Change request forms will be submitted as required to the board for approval.
Section 4 Glossary and References
Architecture: A systematic approach that organizes and guides design, analysis, planning, and documentation activities. SOURCE: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
Component: 1. Hardware, software, environmental factors, and their associated configurations and documentation, which together or separately are configured items. 2. Software or hardware elements approved for inclusion into at least one regional product. SOURCE: SSG - Computing & Network Operations Business Process Management
Configuration Management: The process of managing updates to EA components and artifacts, ensuring that standards are being followed. Source: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
Current View: An EA artifact that represents an EA component or process that currently exists in the enterprise. SOURCE: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
Data: A representation of individual facts, concepts, or instructions in a manner suitable for communication, interpretation, or processing by humans or by automatic means. SOURCE: Information Management and Security Subcouncil
Enterprise: An area of common activity and goals within an organization or between several organizations, where information and other resources are exchanged. SOURCE: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture: The analysis and documentation of an enterprise in its current and future states from an integrated strategy, business, and technology perspective. SOURCE: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
Future View: An EA artifact that represents an EA component or process that does not yet exist in the enterprise. SOURCE: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
Governance: A group of policies, decision-making procedures, and management processes that work together to enable the effective planning and oversight of activities and resources. SOURCE: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
Information: 1. Information is the result of processing, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the person receiving it. SOURCE: www.orafaq.com/glossary/faqglosi.htm 2. Organized data which is understood to have significance and meaning. SOURCE: www.christlinks.com/glossary2.html
Information Technology: Any equipment or interconnected system or subsystem of equipment, that is used in the automatic acquisition, storage, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission, or reception of data or information. The term information technology includes computers, ancillary equipment, software, firmware and similar procedures, services (including support services), and related resources. SOURCE: www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/Purchase/Section_508_def.htm
Line of Business: A distinct area of activity within the enterprise. It may involve the manufacture of certain products, the provision of services, or internal administrative functions. SOURCE: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
Performance Gap: An identified activity or capability that is lacking within the enterprise, which causes the enterprise to perform below desired levels or not achieve strategic or tactical goals. SOURCE: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
Program: A group of related projects managed in a coordinated way. Programs usually involve an element of ongoing activity. SOURCE: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
Project: A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. SOURCE: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
Stakeholder: Everyone who is or will be affected by a program, activity, or resource. Stakeholders for the EA program include sponsors, architects, program managers, users, and support staff. SOURCE: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture
System: A collection of resources and activities that has inputs and outputs. SOURCE: An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture |
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