Selection of enterprise architecture’s rules and methods with the purpose of effective defining of requirements in key IT projects in the Polish public administration

The Polish public service has already had over 20 years of experience in the area of broad scale IT projects. The major development in that area was achieved thanks to the European Union funds from the budget perspective of 2007–2013. As a number of reports analysing the realization of those projects show (either finished or still on-going) – many mistakes have appeared. For instance, Państwo 2.0 – Nowy start dla e-administracji report published in 2012 by the Polish Ministry of Administration and Digitization featuring an analysis of major Polish IT projects indicated 13 projects with major issues in the area of assumptions and/or requirements. The total amount spent for these projects at the moment of the report’s publication reached a level of 2.5 billion zlotys. The same report indicated only 8 projects carried out in line with the assumptions, requirements, and the agreed schedule. The publication provides a synthetic analysis of sources of the mistakes made with respect to assumptions and requirements during the implementation of major IT projects run by the Polish public service between 2007 and 2013. In that context possible solutions are presented and considered, too. The first possible solution is to use one of the already available enterprise architecture frameworks. Three frameworks were qualified for the analysis – FEAF, TOGAF and EAS (selection criteria were the following: framework’s popularity, framework appliance in foreign governmental bodies, and the scope of proposed mechanisms linking enterprise architecture with the organization’s strategy). The main conclusion implied by the analysis is that none of these concepts is a comprehensive tool that can address the Polish public administration’s needs in the area of requirements. Therefore, a new approach was put forward. The proposed model focuses on defining requirements for major Polish public service IT projects. The model provides a concept of arranging elements of enterprise architecture and the whole related ‘environment’ around it. It considers both aspects – dynamic (connected to processes) and static (connected to concepts) – with relation to comprehensive taxonomy of requirements depending on the level of their definition. Finally, the model also delivers mechanisms necessary for a proper linking of the strategy of the whole organization, enterprise architecture, and IT projects.