Critical Capabilities For Enterprise Architecture Tools

Critical Capabilities for Enterprise Architecture Tools
Published 16 December 2019 - ID G00377137 - 54 min read
By Analysts James McGovern, Marty Resnick

Initiatives:Enterprise Architecture
EA tools augment high-impact, business-outcome-driven EA programs. When selecting a tool,

EA and technology innovation leaders must focus on critical tool capabilities that best meet
the current and future needs of the organization to assess and differentiate vendors and their
respective offerings.
This Critical Capabilities is related to other research:
Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Architecture Tools note is restricted to the personal use of [email protected].
This research
View All Magic Quadrants and Critical Capabilities
Overview
Key Findings
■ EA teams often acquire EA tools for deeply technical reasons and not necessarily business-
outcome-driven purposes. Many teams do not have full clarity on identifying the problems they
are trying to solve, defining the appropriate processes and building relationships across the
organization.
■ EA tools often fail to gain traction outside of EA, limiting their benefits. EA teams aren’t always
focused on understanding the disruptions and business scenarios confronting the organization
and ensuring that their tool supports transformation, optimization and innovation.
■ The EA tool vendors featured in this research demonstrated Gartner-specified use cases, but no
two vendors took the same approach to designing their products or to supporting typical use
cases.
Recommendations
Enterprise architecture (EA) and technology innovation leaders seeking to acquire an EA tool:
■ Articulate the compelling business problems, opportunities and outcomes that an EA tool will
help solve both today and tomorrow. As a starting point, this research provides five everyday use
cases that link functional requirements, critical EA tool capabilities and our ratings for each
vendor use case.
Gartner, Inc. | 377137

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This research note is restricted to the personal use of [email protected].
■ Include the needs of both business and IT stakeholders in your evaluation by including their
requirements in your use cases. Cross-enterprise EA tool adoption is the single most significant
factor in the majority of successful EA tool implementations.
■ Evaluate how changes within the business and operating model, increases in number of users,
and integration scenarios over the anticipated usage horizon may affect pricing and adoption,
and lead to a different purchasing decision. Be sure to look beyond Day 1 costs and current
functionality and include the costs of upgrades, new functionality and need for consulting
services over the whole term.
What You Need to Know

Enterprise architecture (EA) tools can help address and support the unique challenges your
organization faces, as well as provide benefits to a wide range of stakeholders. But EA programs
don’t always purchase EA tools based on Thistheir organization’s
research note is restrictedspecific use use
to the personal cases. Organizations that
of [email protected].
acquire EA tools under this scenario often will find the EA tool redundant and unfeasible.
EA tools can be critical assets in assisting enterprise architects and business and IT leaders in
executing and delivering business strategies (see Note 1). But your business leaders must be
prepared and willing to adopt the use of the tool and integrate it into their workflows. Otherwise,
many tools can quickly become shelfware. The best way to ensure adoption happens is to
consider the unique needs of the enterprise.
With an EA tool, stakeholders can receive relevant information for making more-informed decisions
that contribute to the achievement of the outcomes outlined in business strategy. However, the
right EA tools for one organization might not be the right tools for another.
Those tasked with downselecting and acquiring an EA tool should identify and describe their
organization’s specific use cases (see “How to Develop a Winning Value Proposition for Buying
Enterprise Architecture Tools”). They should then ask the vendors on their shortlists to demonstrate
EA tool capabilities based on those use cases (see “Selecting EA Tools: Use Cases Are Not
Optional”). Clients should be aware that evaluating the EA tools featured in this research with
different use cases (other than the five defined in this research) may produce different results.
This Critical Capabilities assessment uses five distinct use cases, with two that are new for 2019:
IT portfolio and asset management, and architecture modeling. Gartner assessed vendors’
products that shipped commercially in May 2019 and based our scoring, rankings and weightings
on what the vendors demonstrated to us. Some vendors may have introduced newer versions or
added functions since then.
EA and technology innovation leaders choosing an EA tool should read this research in conjunction
with the “Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Architecture Tools,” which uses a broader set of vendor
qualification and assessment criteria. Although we reviewed qualifying and leading products in the

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EA tools marketplace, clients should note that these EA tools may not have everything they need,
and some organizations may not require all the features and functions in the tools covered.
Analysis
Critical Capabilities Use-Case Graphics
Figure 1. Vendors’ Product Scores for the Making Smarter Decisions Faster Use Case
Source: Gartner (December 2019)
Figure 2. Vendors’ Product Scores for the Innovation Use Case

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Figure 3. Vendors’ Product Scores for the Rearchitecting the Enterprise for Transformation Use
Case

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Figure 4. Vendors’ Product Scores for the IT Portfolio and Asset Management Use Case

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Figure 5. Vendors’ Product Scores for the Architecture Modeling Use Case

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Vendors
Ardoq
Ardoq is built on an open graph platform. Graph analysis is one of its strengths and differentiators.
Ardoq provides multiple ways of importing data from other applications and data sources,
highlighted by dedicated application integrations. Integrations can be data-based, event-based or
both. Ardoq uses surveys to crowdsource information, while also engaging with the broader
organization, stakeholders and subject matter experts. The capture of information including
stakeholder opinions and feedback as part of the EA journey helps illustrate how the EA tool
responds to a need they have expressed.

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Customers said that Ardoq is easy to implement, and they especially appreciated how easy it is to
visualize information. Customers expressed a wish for more out-of-the-box integrations with
program and portfolio management (PPM) tools and IT service management platforms.
Ardoq scores its highest ratings for the innovation and rearchitecting the enterprise for
transformation use cases. Ardoq’s weakest ratings are for supporting the IT portfolio and asset
management and making smarter decisions faster use cases. IT portfolio and asset management
functionality has a strong emphasis on capturing current state. Importing data from third-party
data sources including Excel, ServiceNow and open APIs is supported via metamodeling
constructs. Therefore, Ardoq’s rating in these two categories is not always viewed as negative,
especially for more transformational work. However, this can impede success in organizations
focused on technology modernization alone. Ardoq is a great fit for organizations in Western
Europe focused on cost optimization.
Avolution This research note is restricted to the personal use of [email protected].
Avolution’s ABACUS uses single sign-on integration with multiple enterprise platforms. Users have
access to the tool embedded inside collaboration environments, which we see increased industry
demand for. This means that users in Microsoft Teams, Slack or Confluence often don’t know
they’re using ABACUS. The customer survey indicated the need for improved documentation
containing more examples, as well as support related to diagramming layout.
Avolution’s strongest use cases are innovation, rearchitecting the enterprise for transformation and
architecture modeling. For ideation, ABACUS offers integration with Microsoft Office 365 for
collaboration, so users can plan agile projects and use Kanban boards. Enterprise architects can
use ABACUS Enterprise, Avolution’s interactive portal, as an idea manager for innovation efforts. A
detailed innovation management dashboard is also included. Its weakest use cases were IT
portfolio and asset management. Organizations focused on a current-state-first technology
modernization effort can use this tool to create wins, but business transformation scenarios best
represent its strength. Avolution is a great fit for organizations that can benefit from a highly
consultative approach and direct engagement from a product management perspective.
BiZZdesign
BiZZdesign proposes that EA focus efforts toward the customer experience with an emphasis on
capturing the customer journey. By leveraging the customer journey, organizations can support
practical innovation including ideation dashboards and visualization of technology evaluation
radars. The tool encourages a flow-based way of thinking, including aligning value streams with
business capabilities. BiZZdesign uses digital twin enterprise models and analytics to coordinate
customer-centered outcomes and goals. It focuses on business capabilities, processes and partner
ecosystems that connect customer experiences supported by data. The digital twin approach used
by BiZZdesign exposes differentiating capabilities for organizations to gain insight into
operational inefficiencies and the ability to use operational data to inform innovation efforts. This

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functionality should be of special interest to organizations that embrace lean thinking and Six
Sigma approaches.
Our customer reference survey reported that customers are completely satisfied with the product.
Customers said that BiZZdesign has a consistent look and feel, and is strong in its use of
ArchiMate as a modeling language. Customers wanted the tool to support design structure
matrices but may not have realized that this can be supported via cross-model relations support.
This exposes an opportunity to provide clarity to customers who may use different terminology.
BiZZdesign’s highest ratings are for the IT portfolio and asset management and making smarter
decisions faster use cases. They have differentiated capabilities related to innovation
management not demonstrated by other vendors. BiZZdesign is a great fit for organizations that
need support for the Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) and frameworks
such as the BIAN service landscape for the banking industry, ACORD framework for the insurance
industry and eTOM business process framework
This research for
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ratings are for the rearchitecting the enterprise for transformation and innovation use cases, where
support for business transformation frameworks is rapidly becoming more important than for EA
frameworks.
BOC Group
BOC Group aims to enable customers to redesign the digital enterprise continuously and to achieve
success across all management domains. It has designed its EA tool using methodologies and
lessons learned from consulting in the EA market. BOC Group’s Knowledge Hub enables users to
work with artificial intelligence (AI) to collect assets and execute on the right disruptive ideas, while
still balancing budgetary and technology roadmaps. This enables EA leaders to propose effective
responses to disruptive forces affecting their organization and evaluate emerging technologies.
Our customer reference survey shows most of the customers we surveyed reported being satisfied
with the product. Customers said that ADOIT has a modeling interface that represents
dependencies between applications, infrastructure and business processes effectively. Customers
noted that in several scenarios, it might be necessary to reformat output to support a business-
facing presentation. Clients are advised to engage BOC consultants to ascertain available
presentation options and best practices.
BOC Group’s highest-rated use cases are IT portfolio and asset management and architecture
modeling. Its user interface works well for both EA and non-EA users, especially when combined
with a multiexperience approach. Its lowest ratings are for the rearchitecting the enterprise for
transformation and innovation uses cases. In these two areas, increased focus on visualizations
and enablement of storytelling will provide lasting benefit. ADOIT’s SaaS model is a great fit for
organizations that want to experiment with an EA tool that allows them to grow to support a more
sizable long-term commitment. ADOIT is a good choice for organizations that choose to work with
standard frameworks. Implementing nonstandard custom frameworks is possible but requires
either a lengthy learning curve or increased professional services support.

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Clausmark
Clausmark links financial management, enterprise architecture management, and program and
portfolio management in a manner that seeks to enable continuous transparency that serves as a
stable knowledge base for the organization. Clausmark’s customers praise its focus on IT financial
management. They also like its IT value chain approach that connects strategy and planning to
requests and fulfillment. This approach enables strong integration between EA and
delivery/execution. Clausmark supports, in a well-engineered and thoughtful way, the General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other European constructs that are becoming requirements
among global firms.
Our customer reference survey shows that clients reported being completely satisfied with the
product. Customers said that Bee4IT is highly customizable and easy to implement. Customers
want the output to be “PowerPoint ready” and want extended support for mobility.
Clausmark’s highest ratings are for the This

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use of portfolio and asset
management use cases. Bee4IT demonstrates strong support for concerns that are unique to
financial services. One differentiated capability was how Clausmark could integrate with other EA
tools. This is of special importance in federated organizations where the organization needs to
supplement the primary EA tool of choice or, alternatively, where multiple EA tool deployments need
unification. Clausmark’s lowest rating is for the innovation use case. There was no roadmap
presented for supporting technology innovation or supporting technology radars. At the time of the
demonstration, this seemed to be in the brainstorming stage. The personas strongly represented
included CEO, CIO and PMO but lacked strong viewpoints for other architecture roles.
erwin
The unique approach erwin uses is based on its view that the visibility of data is critical to many
users, not just EA users. It has designed its tool to ingest the metadata from federated data in the
organization. This enables EA practitioners and non-EA users to make actionable decisions faster.
Models are outcome-driven, aligning items to specific initiatives, projects, products or solution
development activities. This provides point-in-time visualizations of architecture artifacts
throughout the organization.
Our customer reference survey reported that most customers are satisfied or completely satisfied
with the product. Customers said erwin is flexible in support of multiple standard frameworks, such
as ArchiMate and Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), and is easy to tailor through
configuration. Customers also stated that erwin lacks support for ready-to-use artifacts. Also,
several customers that used earlier versions of erwin EA noted that erwin’s desktop-centric
client/server approach introduces deployment and utilization challenges.
Because of its strong emphasis on democratizing data across the organization, erwin’s strongest
use cases are architecture modeling and innovation. Support for modeling occurs at varying levels
of abstraction from conceptual modeling that outlines viewpoints that business stakeholders find
valuable to physical modeling that specifies how a solution will be implemented. Of special
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interest is the ability to track and link technology trends to business impacts. The product should
be considered by organizations that want to link EA with data/information from ideation to
production/integration. For organizations that are cost-sensitive or that depend on a marketplace
of available talent from third-party consultancies and integrators, erwin is not the best fit.
Enterprise Architecture Solutions

Enterprise Architecture Solutions’ EA tool is Essential Cloud, which is built based on the experience
of practicing EA consultants. Essential Cloud takes a business-outcome-driven approach to EA,
helping organizations to focus on business outcomes and strategy and planning. It is the only
vendor that acknowledges the distinction between EA and application portfolio management,
along with the roles that should own each.
Customers indicated that Essential Cloud’s enterprise reference architecture library with prebuilt
catalogs simplifies standing up an EA tool. Customers appreciated how easy it is to customize the
repository metamodel. Customers likedThis
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team that understands how to structure complex data relationships.
Essential Cloud’s highest ratings are for the making smarter decisions faster and architecture
modeling use cases. The underlying metamodel is very comprehensive, highly extensible and can
easily support the mapping of concepts, activities and the tools of both industry-standard
architecture frameworks as well as business frameworks. The metamodel is built using OWL, a
meta-meta model that enables an approach that is highly descriptive — all without requiring
programming. This vendor’s approach is highly nuanced and likely to be appreciated by
metamodel connoisseurs and EA teams that are strong in information architecture. Essential
Cloud’s weakest rating is for the innovation use case since it does not focus on technology
innovation. Support for helping manage business disruptions and innovation management, which
is essential for EA teams seeking to take an internal management consultancy approach, is
missing.
LeanIX
LeanIX believes that the key to a successful EA practice is to involve everyone in the enterprise and
encourage them to contribute their knowledge about business and technology. LeanIX has a
unique approach to innovation, which means ideas can start in collaboration tools, such as Slack,
that the organization already uses. This enables flow into the EA repository.
Our customer reference survey reports that most customers are satisfied or completely satisfied
with the product. Customers said that LeanIX’s quick-start approach enables them to achieve
results faster than with other tools. Customers described the user experience as intuitive and said
business users and senior management could adopt the tool quickly. Several customers noted that
reporting options are too basic and that the tool needs more functionality for non-power users.
LeanIX’s highest ratings are for the rearchitecting the enterprise for transformation and architecture
modeling use cases. This is because of its focus on collaboration and data accuracy to make the

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EA repository reliable. LeanIX has a track record of deploying new features more quickly than other
vendors. LeanIX comes with a best-practice data model that allows customers to correctly
instrument data. When followed, many common usability challenges can be avoided.
MEGA International
MEGA International’s HOPEX is a highly integrated EA tool. It supports IT architecture; governance,
risk and compliance (GRC); portfolio management; and business process analysis scenarios in a
way that enables mapping and streamlining of strategies, processes and systems. HOPEX
provides an out-of-the-box metamodel that is highly configurable and has robust modeling
capabilities.
Our customer reference survey reports that equal numbers of customers are satisfied or completely
satisfied with the product. Customers said HOPEX covers many concepts ranging from EA to GRC,
and it is easy to learn and easy to adapt to organizational needs. Customers said that on-premises
support is more challenging than cloudThis
deployment.
research note is restricted to the personal use of [email protected].
MEGA’s highest ratings are for the making smarter decisions faster and IT portfolio and asset
management use cases. Often, decision making requires information outside of just EA. MEGA
unifies program and portfolio management and GRC, which are of increasing importance,
especially for organizations in regulated industries as well as for organizations that need to
comply with GDPR. MEGA also places emphasis not just on enabling IT architecture roles, but also
on engaging the IT CFO as part of the planning processes. MEGA is an excellent fit for government
organizations that are strongly aligned to DoDAF and for private-sector firms that focus on TOGAF
and ArchiMate. MEGA received its lowest ratings for the innovation use case. MEGA supports
some aspects of innovation management but is not user-friendly enough for use by non-EA
practitioners, which is of special emphasis in federated organizations.
Orbus Software
Orbus Software’s iServer provides a central repository that enables the EA team to collaborate on
architecture models using an integrated approach tied to Microsoft products such as Visio. iServer
supports many architecture frameworks, including TOGAF v.9.2, IT4IT and the British Ministry of
Defence Architecture Framework (MODAF). Orbus performs architecture diagramming tasks
robustly and can place tight controls on the standards used and the notations permitted. Orbus
has strong functionality when it comes to support for import and export of information that
includes data models, configuration management databases (CMDBs) and Microsoft Project,
which enables the ability to ensure enterprise architecture, infrastructure and operations, and
projects are aligned.
Our customer reference survey reports that just as many customers are satisfied with the product
as are completely satisfied with it. Customers said that iServer is intuitive, simple to use and
supports many of the features that EA requires. They state the integration with Microsoft tools
enables easy adoption. Customers also indicate that workflow capability is basic and would
benefit from increased API support.
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Orbus receives its highest score for architecture modeling because it enables organizations to
develop their customized metamodel in an intuitive, easy-to-maintain manner. Organizations
should consider Orbus if they need support for ArchiMate, BPMN and Unified Modeling Language
(UML) as part of their solution architecture discipline. iServer provides good dashboard capabilities
that require customization to fully support a business-outcome-driven EA approach. Orbus received
its lowest ratings for the innovation use case as it is highly coupled to the desktop modality,
limiting future multiexperience support for chatbots and other interaction styles. Integration with
Microsoft tools can curb its appeal for organizations wanting to use different tools, such as
Google Docs.
Planview
Planview positions its platform as the strategy-to-delivery solution. The Planview Enterprise One
platform strives to exploit Planview’s experience in the program and project management field and
its focus on EA capabilities. Enterprise One comes with a predefined visualization library that can
serve as a starter set of visualizations that can be customized to enable improved business
conversations about technology. Support for interactive analysis between business capability
models, applications and technology infrastructure within a business context affords enterprise
architects the ability to identify the impact and to drive targeted change.
Our customer reference survey revealed lower-than-average scores for Planview’s overall
integration and deployment, and service and support. Customers liked Planview’s capabilities as a
repository and for decision analysis, but gave it below-average scores for presentation and
monitoring. Customers indicated that combining EA with PPM enabled them to make strategic
data-driven decisions.
Planview’s highest ratings are for the architecture modeling and making smarter decisions faster
use cases. Enterprise architects using Planview can model multiple investment scenarios to
evaluate alternative approaches for driving targeted outcomes and compare options by cost, risk,
benefits, resources and business capability impact. Planview has consolidated its PPM and EA
tools under the Enterprise One banner and plans to address innovation gaps that are exposed
across its current product offerings. Planview is a great fit for organizations that want to take a
product management approach in a single platform.
QualiWare
In 2018, QualiWare redesigned its product to focus on simplicity, for both EA and non-EA users,
with an emphasis on improved collaboration capabilities. QualiWare has a focus on organizations
moving from little or no EA capability to a mature EA discipline. QualiWare has invested in new
interfaces, such as a mobile interface, to give users the information they need when they need it.
QualiWare offers deep support for many of the popular EA frameworks, such as Zachman, TOGAF
and ArchiMate, but also for lesser-known but otherwise innovative takes on enterprise architecture
such as EA3. Support for progressive frameworks seeks to move past technology planning by

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incorporating strategic planning as the primary driver of enterprise and business planning as the
source of most program and resource requirements.
Customers reported that QualiWare supports EA maturity effectively and provides good value for
the money. Customers gave QualiWare lower-than-average scores for capabilities such as decision
analysis and administration, and above-average scores for visualization and innovation.
Customers said it provides a great visual presentation of processes, IT support, risks and internal
controls, with different views depending on the target audience.
QualiWare scores its highest ratings for the making smarter decisions faster and architecture
modeling use cases. QualiWare helps organizations choose which practices to adopt by
supporting multiple best practices. Early focus on best practices is something EA programs often
champion. One gap that remains underappreciated is that best practices are often created in
isolation, resulting in EA teams having to rectify differences. QualiWare’s approach helps resolve
the challenge of which frameworks to adopt, understanding
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ultimately, the gaps that emerge. QualiWare’s lowest rating was for the innovation use case
because the tool didn’t provide much functionality beyond capturing ideas using a suggestion box
metaphor. Also, QualiWare’s AI and machine learning demonstration failed to generate any truly
innovative insights.
Software AG
Software AG aims to support EA practitioners from strategy through to implementation. Its tool,
Alfabet, includes capabilities for IT planning, relationship management, and risk and financial
management. It provides integration capabilities that offer a single view for EA across the entire
organization. Alfabet encourages usage and adoption through an AI-enabled conversational UI.
Our customer reference surveys reported a below-average overall experience. The reasons cited are
concerns with usability and the complexity of getting the tool running. The metamodel is
comprehensive out of the box. One of Alfabet’s strengths is in enabling planning, which is of
particular importance during transformation efforts; however, the tool works best with users who
are skilled planners.
Software AG’s highest ratings are for the architecture modeling and IT portfolio and asset
management use cases. Software AG’s repository approach was especially strong in enabling a
future-state-first approach. The support for ideation and innovation management enables
organizations to better model their targeted future state with increased clarity compared to other
tools in the marketplace. Software AG received its lowest ratings for the innovation use case.
Software AG provides an event management framework that enables users to create events on
which certain actions can be taken when triggered. Customers should consider this as part of their
overall approach when integrating with other sources of information within the enterprise.
Sparx Systems

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Sparx Systems offers a flexible visual modeling tool with the ability to create data, customer
journeys, and business and strategic models. Our customer reference survey reported a lower-than-
average score for overall satisfaction. Customers reported higher-than-average ratings for
modeling and configurability, and below-average ratings for presentation and usability. Customers
reported that Sparx incorporates many frameworks, standards and modeling templates out of the
box, and enables the creation of relationships between elements.
Sparx’s highest ratings are for the architecture modeling and IT portfolio and asset management
use cases. Like other EA tools, Sparx enables the alignment of IT strategy with business strategy
but excels in increasing the speed of IT delivery. The ability to trace from a mind map through
requirements ultimately to software design and deployment can be beneficial when rapid
turnaround from idea to execution is not optional. Sparx received its lowest ratings for the
innovation and rearchitecting the enterprise for transformation use cases. This is due to its IT
centricity without any advanced support for business-oriented frameworks and methodologies
often employed as part of transformational activities. Sparx is a great fit for organizations that
want an enterprise tool to support modeling, including solution architecture, moving of databases
and other activities as part of development efforts. Sparx is not the best fit for organizations that
want active participation from business stakeholders in diagramming efforts.
UNICOM Systems
UNICOM Systems’ System Architect enables users to visualize, analyze and communicate with
stakeholders by applying industry-standard frameworks, notations and methods. System Architect
provides an integrated collection of models and analytics for use in business and technology
change and transformation initiatives. The Focal Point add-on provides innovation support from
ideation to execution. EA practitioners can submit ideas on criteria such as risk, complexity and
business value, and evaluate them through a pairwise comparison.
Our customer reference survey reported the same number of customers are satisfied with the
product as those that are completely satisfied with it. Customers said that System Architect is
good at large-scale software architectures for experienced users. Customers reported solid support
and frequent updates for different architecture frameworks.
System Architect received its highest rating for the architecture modeling use case, with support for
multiple modeling standards in one repository. It provides good support for the financial services
industry and the government sector, with support for DoDAF. System Architect is also valuable for
organizations that need a tool for the reverse engineering of code repositories and databases as
part of modernization efforts. System Architect received its lowest rating for the rearchitecting the
enterprise for transformation use case. The tool uses a software engineering paradigm, not an
enterprise architecture management or business transformation paradigm. During the vendor
evaluation, we did not receive any examples of clients using the tool as part of business
transformation efforts. It is not the best fit for organizations that want a future-state-first approach
and signature-ready deliverables, such as support for scenario planning, ecosystem modeling,
roadmaps and other deliverables that are core to a business-outcome-driven EA approach.
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ValueBlue
ValueBlue’s BlueDolphin focuses on collaboration between multiple roles in a way that enables
centralized supervision but decentralized approaches to EA. BlueDolphin is effective in application
portfolio management where uncontrolled growth of applications often results in overlapping
functionality. It enables users to quickly gain insights into cost management and rationalization
opportunities, and how business processes can be improved. BlueDolphin’s support for GDPR is of
particular interest, as is its ability to link the GDPR register of processing activities to business
processes captured within a business process management (BPM) approach and underlying IT
infrastructure.
Our customer reference survey reports just as many customers are satisfied with the product as are
completely satisfied with it. Customers say BlueDophin is easy to use and enables collaboration
between business and IT stakeholders. Customers said the tool enables rapid oversight of, and
insights into, business applications. However, customers commented on its limited reporting
features.
ValueBlue received its highest scores for the IT portfolio and asset management and architecture
modeling use cases. This is because of its ability to support links between applications, business
processes and data to establish a single source of truth. This ability is of increasing importance for
organizations that want to turn data into insight. ValueBlue received its lowest scores for the
innovation use case. ValueBlue takes a current-state approach with an emphasis on mapping. This
paradigm skips past the importance of sculpting ideas into actual innovations that are required
components of innovation in general and may also be key in scenarios where rearchitecting the
enterprise for transformation is required. ValueBlue is a good choice for organizations that want to
centralize an enterprise IT architecture and take a diagramming-oriented approach.
Context
The EA tools featured in this research differ by capabilities relating to decision analysis,
innovation, modeling, presentation and usability. However, their core/base functionality has little
variation — all support the four main viewpoints of EA (i.e., business, information, technology and
solutions).
Gartner has evaluated the tools of the vendors featured in this Critical Capabilities assessment on
their performance against five use cases. We did not assess the application of EA tools to specific
problems such as application performance management or governance. Instead, we looked at
some of the use cases that are applicable across a variety of business problems:
■ Using an EA tool to help make smarter decisions — EA tools deliver real value only when the
broader organization can use the information that architects and others enter collaboratively for
analysis and decision support.
■ Using an EA tool to drive innovation — Innovation is key to digital transformation.

Organizations must evaluate emerging technologies and enable innovation with structured,

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flexible and iterative methods.
■ Using an EA tool to rearchitect the organization for digital transformation — EA tools must
enable enterprise architects to provide details of the future architectural state required to enable
digital transformation and perform a gap analysis.
■ Using an EA tool to manage IT portfolio and assessment management — EA tools must

manage the current state of the IT portfolio and guide technology projects, emphasizing factors
such as cost optimization, revenue growth and risk mitigation.
■ Using an EA tool for architecture modeling — EA tools must focus on modeling business
processes and rules, information resources, information exchange, business ecosystems,
applications, and services.
We based our scoring mainly on what the Thisvendors demonstrated

research note topersonal
is restricted to the us during
use oftheir use-case
[email protected].
presentations, which were part of their briefings. We recommend that those selecting and
purchasing EA tools also weight their scorings on how well vendors perform against their specific
use cases, rather than on the vendors’ RFP responses or demonstrations based on the EA tool
frameworks. Those who are selecting EA tools need a clear idea of the value an EA tool can bring
to their organization. This is vital in justifying the initial purchase, as well as in determining the
ongoing costs and effort required to maintain the information in the tool (see “How to Develop a
Winning Value Proposition for Buying Enterprise Architecture Tools”).
Product/Service Class Definition

Enterprise architects have traditionally used EA tools for a variety of purposes, including:
■ Documentation
■ What-if analysis
■ Portfolio management
■ Requirements management
■ Architecture governance and assurance
■ Technology standards and compliance
When EA tools are used to support business transformation, demonstrating traceability through a
direct, line-of-sight linkage among targeted business outcomes, future-state business capabilities,
programs, projects and initiatives, they are especially valuable. With an increased focus on
managing complexity, collaborating with business and IT stakeholders, and working to create
action-oriented, signature-ready deliverables (see Note 2), enterprise architects can deliver real
value to their organizations.

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Data from the customer reference survey that was conducted as part of the Critical Capabilities
research process shows that EA tool customers bought the tool for the following reasons (multiple
responses were permitted):
■ Enhance decision making — 80%
■ Create internal/operational efficiencies — 74%
■ Improve compliance and risk management — 53%
■ Improve business process outcomes — 47%
■ Improve business process agility — 42%
■ Drive innovation — 35%
■ Cut costs/improve margins — 31% This research note is restricted to the personal use of [email protected].
■ Improve customer relations/service — 23%
■ Reduce time to market — 21%
■ Improve supplier or partner relations — 7%
■ Drive revenue growth — 5%
■ Other — 15%
These reasons can all be used as criteria for building a business case to purchase an EA tool.
Additionally, the customer reference survey uncovered the key factors that drove the decision to
choose a particular vendor (multiple responses were permitted). These are the top five factors:
■ Competitive costs — 56%
■ Functional breadth — 46%
■ Technological innovation — 45%
■ Strong customer focus — 43%
■ Compelling vision — 42%
Many of the products featured in this Critical Capabilities assessment have been on the market for
years, and customers sometimes have a difficult time differentiating among them. As technology
evolves and can be used in more places and different ways, accessibility across platforms will
become more critical, along with abundant graphical views and intuitive modern user interfaces.
All of the products reviewed in this research have begun to incorporate these features, as well as
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additional innovation/ideation capabilities. However, they all still have a ways to go to meet the
increasing demands of digital transformation and optimization on the role of enterprise architects.
New needs are being created by the increased focus on digital transformation and the need to
exploit technological innovations. EA tools have traditionally had niche appeal, limiting the
investment in development necessary to keep pace with changing needs. The increased focus on
digital transformation and optimization is spurring organizations to create new business and
operating models (see “Follow 5 Steps to Architect Your Enterprise Operating Model”).
Organizations are also increasingly using alternatives to EA tools to address shortfalls in EA
products. One example is the use of roadmapping software (such as ITONICS or Sopheon), which
offers more options for creating roadmaps (see “Market Guide for Strategy and Innovation
Roadmapping Tools”).
Two key trends have emerged during the past year that will increase the appeal of EA tools:
integration and innovation. Both are increasingly important
This research note considerations
is restricted inofplanning
to the personal use and
[email protected].
executing digital business transformation and optimization. EA tools can play a key role in
reinventing the IT value chain when the EA tool is integrated with other tools. As organizations
increasingly seek insight into questions that cannot be addressed by a stand-alone EA tool,
enterprises will seek ways to integrate with other sources of information within the enterprise to
unlock additional insight:
■ Program and portfolio management
■ DevOps
■ Enterprise agile planning
■ Security management
■ Innovation management
■ Technology business management
■ Governance, risk and compliance
■ Infrastructure and operations (I&O)
Integration scenarios vary widely. As part of evaluating an EA tool, identifying the questions an EA
tool needs to answer and address using data from PPM, application performance management
(APM), IT financial management (ITFM), GRC, I&O and other scenarios is of growing importance.
Below are frequently asked questions Gartner analysts see our clients incorporating into their
integration use cases:
■ Which upcoming projects target the creation of future-state business capabilities?

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■ What is the total cost of operations for a specified set of business capabilities or value streams?
■ How should we prioritize rationalization efforts across business processes, applications and
infrastructure?
■ Which applications are currently out of compliance with various regulations we must adhere to?
Innovation is increasingly being recognized as a contributor to business success. As a result, many

EA tool vendors have incorporated functionality that provides support across the various stages of
innovation — from idea generation, evaluation and selection to managing the process of taking
ideas to final realization. Sustainable approaches to innovation require mechanisms for capturing
and aggregating the outcomes of these forms of engagement; for sifting, filtering, organizing and
systematically assessing the risks and rewards of different options; and for aligning these options
with specific business priorities.
Critical Capabilities Definition

Decision Analysis
Decision analysis algorithms enable enterprise architects to provide information to help their
organizations decide how to deal with complex problems of business investment and risk. These
algorithms also help enterprise architects provide information on the impact of potential decisions.
Diligent enterprise architects focus their efforts on the decision criteria and priorities of key
stakeholders, from business analysts and project managers to strategic planners and C-level
executives. However, business priorities can change, so the EA team should regularly interact with
such stakeholders to ensure that the information the team captures is still appropriate to support
decision making.
Important differentiators of the decision analysis capability are:
■ Gap analysis and roadmaps for current- and future-state architectures
■ What-if analysis for determining the impact of change, such as business, organizational and
regulatory compliance
■ The analysis supporting investment management, PPM and strategic planning
■ Creation of reports for multiple stakeholders
■ Scenario planning and a systems-thinking approach
■ The ability to link strategic business plans with business outcomes for decision traceability and
impact analysis
■ The ability to link customer interactions to internal operations and resources (apps, data and
people)
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Innovation
Organizations must prepare for and embrace complex, ambiguous and disruptive innovation to
gain significant business advantage. EA tools must support the organization by formalizing
approaches that enable continuous idea generation and create a leap in value by leveraging digital
disruption.
EA leaders will often create a list of scenarios they want the EA tool to fulfill by analyzing their
organization’s innovation process, target participants, engagement mechanism, evaluation criteria
and execution method. Innovation programs need to include mechanisms for capturing and
aggregating the outcomes of these forms of engagement; for sifting, filtering, organizing and
systematically assessing the risks and rewards of different options; and for aligning these options
with specific business priorities.
Important differentiators of the innovation capability are:

■ Functionality that enables full participation using a mobile device or other multiexperiences (i.e.,
chatbots) across multiple devices.
■ Integration with internal collaboration environments (such as Microsoft SharePoint and email)
through which users can contribute ideas or participate in conversations; innovation
management systems (“Market Guide for Innovation Management Tools”) and external systems
(such as Facebook) through which participants can be invited or become more deeply engaged.
■ Social features such as the ability for subscribers to “follow” people, topics and conversations;
participant file sharing; and access to groups and communities.
■ Support for innovation events to open and close on specific dates; a complete solution allows
for open-ended events or campaigns. Innovation events can include internal-only events or
campaigns, as well as external-only ones, or hybrid ones with both internal and external
participants.
■ Support for communication of innovation events including sending announcements and alerts
for events or campaigns; and supports real-time events (such as “innovation jams”).
■ Pipeline dashboards for ideas, balanced scorecards and other structured methods for decision
making, customizable workflow for the evaluation and approval of ideas, and business case
recording that captures risks and financial impact.
■ Enabling the submission and tagging of ideas, voting on or rating of ideas, addition of
questions, grouping ideas for review, discussion of ideas and rating, finding of duplicates, and
forwarding of ideas to others.
■ Collection of data on specific topics automatically from industry databases and general
information from specialist information databases or services (i.e., Trendexplorer).

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■ Collection of data or general information on specific topics from the web and social media that
enables a trend scouting team to:
■ Submit and share information to enable exploration of the collected information and generate
new effective ideas.
■ Empower discussion, decision making and tracking of specific trends or technologies of

interest. This can include innovation databases such as the Gartner Hype Cycle (see
“Understanding Gartner’s Hype Cycles”).
■ Map the universe of possibilities to connect users to other users (see “Executing on
Innovation: Design the Process From Idea to Value”).
■ Analyze survey results, focus group transcripts and other forms of information for inspiration
(see “From Push to Passion: Using Inspiration as a Management Approach”).
Modeling
EA tools must have extensive, flexible and robust modeling capabilities for all the architecture
viewpoints. Models can be useful for communicating to a variety of stakeholders when a visual
conveys the meaning more effectively than words.
Examples of this type of communication include:
■ Highlighting the impact of business change across different architectural viewpoints
■ Illustrating multiple future-state scenarios for decision-making purposes
Important differentiators of the modeling capability are:
■ Modeling the current- and future-state architectures (or architectures of multiple future states),
including all viewpoints (e.g., business, information, technology and solutions)
■ Integrating with other types of modeling tools in a specific viewpoint
■ Support for modeling, from the strategy level to technical implementation
■ Support for different types of modeling, including:
■ Business capability modeling (see “Eight Best Practices for Creating High-Impact Business
Capability Models”)
■ Business process modeling (see“Market Guide for Enterprise Business Process Analysis”)
■ Customer journey mapping (see “Create Actionable, Insight-Driven Journey Maps”)
■ Business ecosystem modeling (see “Eight Ways Ecosystems Supercharge Business Models”)

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■ Business operating model modeling (see “Create a Digital Twin of Your Organization to
Optimize Your Digital Business Transformation Program”)
■ Data and information modeling (see “Data Modeling to Support End-to-End Data
Architectures”)
■ Security architecture modeling (see “How to Successfully Design and Implement a Data-
Centric Security Architecture”)
Presentation
Presenting information about business change impacts, scenarios and gap analyses is key in
informing the decisions many organizations face and in gaining an understanding of, and support
for, proposed solutions. It is also vital for decision-making processes involved in investment and
risk.
Presentation must be aligned with the audience, its interests and concerns. This means that
enterprise architects must understand their key stakeholders. By doing so, they will ensure that
each group can view the information it wants in its preferred format (e.g., PDF, HTML, PowerPoint
or Excel) and visualization (such as bar charts, bubble charts or pie charts).
The underlying repository and metamodel may be robust and complex, but the presentation of
information must be straightforward and illustrative. The presentation should be tailored to the
audience and address its interests and concerns.
Important differentiators of the presentation capability are:
■ Visuals that are often interactive, which highlight impacts and support multiple scenarios for
business and IT stakeholders
■ Interfaces with other presentation applications
■ Publication of features on (external) ecosystem partner applications or dashboards
■ Presentation of proposals (deliverables) to external customers and partners
Usability
Considering the complexity of the underlying repository/metamodel and decision analysis
capabilities, usability is a highly valued and desirable EA tool feature. It covers how the tool
achieves its purpose and how easy it is to use. The tool must be intuitive and easy to learn and
maintain.
Usability is becoming more important as stakeholders outside the EA team begin using EA tools to
find information that helps them navigate complex decisions. One of the consequences of digital
technologies is the expectation of human-centric design (see “Achieving Digital Business
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Transformation With Digital Design”). Users now expect the user experience to adapt to them,
rather than users having to adapt to the device or software.
Important differentiators of the usability capability are:
■ A UI that is intuitive, easy to learn and flexible
■ Modeling capabilities that are easy to use, robust and flexible
■ Administration that is easy to navigate and maintain
■ Configuration that is extensive, parameter-driven and flexible
■ A tool that is “memorable” — users remember how to use it when they come back to it
Use Cases This research note is restricted to the personal use of [email protected].
Making Smarter Decisions Faster

EA tools deliver true value only when the broader organization can use the information that
architects and others enter collaboratively for analysis and decision support.
In this use case, we identified the following stakeholders and interests:
■ EA Teams, Strategy Teams, Program Management Offices (PMOs) and PPM — Undertake
scenario planning and impact analysis, and want to use the business model canvas, business
operating models, value stream maps and PESTLE analysis.
■ Business Division Heads and HR — Focus on nontechnology changes that can be used to guide
organizational change and process improvement, particularly when it comes to improving
customer service ratings. Of interest is the ability of employees who speak different languages
to collaborate using their native tongue effectively.
■ Strategy Teams and Enterprise Architects — Need the ability to make recommendations to the
CEO and general business management on investment, rationalization and optimization
decisions to support the organization’s desired future state. Want to see how plans link to
business outcomes, goals and objectives, and business capability models.
■ CIOs, CEOs and Divisional Heads — Want signature-ready, action-oriented deliverables on which
they can make the necessary investment decisions to respond to changes in the business model
and marketplace.
■ Program Management Office — Seeks roadmaps to help build programs to deliver business
transformation and change initiatives. Also, wants a way to connect the roadmaps with program
and project plans.

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■ Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) Teams — Want clear and concise roadmaps that enable
them to plan and assess changes that affect the organization.
■ EA Teams, Business Process Modeling Teams and Business Divisional Heads — Want the ability
to use business process modeling, customer journey mapping and ecosystem modeling
techniques to optimize the customer experience. These techniques enable these stakeholders to
understand how they work with partners and suppliers.
We used these conditions to assess whether the vendor met the use case through its tool
demonstration:
■ Users can use interactive visuals in scenario planning and what-if analysis, with support for
automatically generated differential views.
■ Business management, strategy teams

This and EAnote
research teams can perform
is restricted cost-benefit
to the personal and risk-value
use of [email protected].
analyses with sensitive data protected from unauthorized users.
■ Users can perform impact analysis across multiple domains — people, process, information and
technology — and turn this information into diagnostic deliverables (see Note 3).
■ Users can export information into signature-ready, action-oriented deliverables that are easy for
CEOs, CIOs and divisional heads to understand and approve.
■ Users can create complete reports containing all the information necessary for CEOs, CIOs and
divisional heads to make investment, rationalization and optimization decisions.
■ The tool enables divisional heads, strategy teams and enterprise architects to understand the
impact on business capabilities and gives them clear roadmaps on which to make decisions
and execute.
■ All stakeholders can see clear and relevant roadmaps for the business. These roadmaps should
include targeted business outcomes and the desired future state. Roadmaps should be simple,
concise and understandable by all across the business.
Furthermore, we defined our main success evaluation criteria as the ability to:
■ Demonstrate the tool using a business-outcome-driven EA approach to produce signature-ready

deliverables that enable the CEO and the CEO’s management team to make investment,
rationalization and optimization decisions (see “Stage Planning a Business-Outcome-Driven
Enterprise Architecture”).
■ Show the creation of models and roadmaps from data imported from outside the EA tool.
■ Demonstrate how changes in one model or roadmap reflect across other models or roadmaps
(scenario planning and what-if analysis).
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■ Show how the tool supports different types of stakeholders and can address their needs for
scenario planning, impact assessment, diagnostic deliverables and reporting.
■ Indicate the various types of modeling that the tool supports, including business capability
modeling, business process modeling, customer journey mapping and ecosystem modeling.
■ Show how stakeholders can generate action plans based on the analysis of scenarios, impacts
and costs.
Innovation
Innovation is key to digital transformation. Organizations must evaluate emerging technologies
and enable innovation with structured, flexible and iterative methods.

■ EA Teams — Want to address technology disruptions and provide ideas, support and guidance
to the business and the strategy teams.
■ Strategy Teams — Want advice and inputs on the technology trends, risks and enablers they
must consider when devising a strategy and when planning for impacts on the business and
operating models.
■ Innovation Teams — Want new ideas and technology trends with which to experiment to achieve
digital transformation and deliver an optimal customer experience.
■ CEOs, CIOs and Business Managers — Want to encourage and manage collaboration to gain
ideas from the highest number of people.
■ Application Teams — Want support for more iterative application development and adoption of
a DevOps approach. Also want to identify where the IT landscape must be modernized to
achieve digital transformation.
■ Infrastructure Teams — Want the ability to view the potential impact of digital technologies on
the current infrastructure landscape. This will enable them to determine what they will need to
put in place to support the organization’s future digital state.
Our main success factors for this use case were for vendors to demonstrate that:
■ Business and EA teams can capture, evaluate and prioritize ideas, and assess them for
suitability against targeted business outcomes.
■ All stakeholders can contribute to and collaborate on plans, scenarios and impacts, as well as
communicate with, and listen to, their wider business staff.

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■ Users can employ interactive visuals for scenario planning and what-if analysis, with support for
automatically generated differential views.
■ Business managers, working with the strategy, innovation and EA teams, can plan for and
implement projects involving new digital technologies.
■ Application and infrastructure teams can plan and have support for the introduction of new
digital technologies.
Furthermore, we defined our main evaluation success criteria as the ability to show:
■ How different types and groups of users can collaborate within the tool, from ideation through
to execution.
■ The support the tool provides for ideation and innovation.

■ The availability of human-centric techniques for supporting Mode 2 activities, such as business
scenario planning, persona profiles and strategic value assessments.
■ How the tool helps plan and support Mode 2 activities in more iterative solution or application
development projects. These activities can include methods such as Kanban, agile, Scrum and
lean that help the IT organization pursue a DevOps approach.
Rearchitecting the Enterprise for Transformation

The EA tool must enable enterprise architects to provide details of the future architectural state
required to enable digital transformation and perform a gap analysis.
■ CIO — Wants to see how new systems, applications, data and technology are performing. Also,
wants to see what can be changed and what needs to be changed.
■ CFO — Wants a cost-benefit realization based on the performance of the entire EA initiative.
■ Security and Risk Team — Wants to understand how risk objectives and risk controls are
monitored to avoid risk and guarantee business continuity. Additionally, they would like to
understand the efficiency and effectiveness of their shift-left approach to security.
■ Infrastructure Team — Wants insights into how well the system, hardware and network choices
are performing to support value creation by the infrastructure and operations team.
■ Enterprise Architecture Team — Wants to know how to reconfigure the architectural models to
support multiple frameworks and different architectural perspectives. These include business
architecture, information architecture, IT architecture and solution architecture.

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■ Strategy Team — Wants to know how applying new technology, products, services, channels or
ways of operating affects performance and the business and operating models.
■ Innovation Team — Wants to know how new ideas and technology trends will affect
performance to help achieve digital transformation and deliver an optimal customer experience.
■ CEOs, CIOs, Senior Business Executives and Business Managers — Want to monitor benefits or
value realization and operational performance to adapt strategy direction or operational
strategies.
■ Application Team — Wants to examine performance, develop suggestions for improving the
DevOps approach and understand where the IT landscape can be improved to achieve digital
transformation. Additionally, they want to increase their focus on resiliency and looking for novel
ways to embrace chaos engineering.
demonstration:
■ Business stakeholders can monitor the performance of business activities and optimize them
for efficiency and improved customer experience.
■ CIOs can provide clear proposals for rearchitecting the enterprise to the CEO and CFO, complete
with detailed, summarized business analysis.
■ The tool enables CFOs to understand the costs, benefits and risks of proposed rearchitecture
projects.
■ EA teams can provide a plan for transitioning to the future-state architecture required to support
the new digital transformation and be a stronger participant in their industry ecosystem.
■ All key stakeholders can analyze the information held in the EA tool to optimize the value
proposition of the digital transformation for the organization’s customers and suppliers.
Furthermore, we defined our main success evaluation criteria as the ability to demonstrate:
■ That operational (near-real-time) data can be imported from various sources.
■ That measurements and KPIs can be applied to rearchitected, as well as existing, elements.
These elements include business capabilities, business processes, applications, customer
journey maps and business ecosystems.
■ How the tool can evaluate the performance of the IT landscape.
■ How the tool can analyze the way changes in strategy can affect business and operating
models.

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Since clients can have different interpretations of the term “digital transformation,” they can mean
either IT or business transformation, usually leveraging digital technologies. Gartner recently
provided greater clarity on definitions relating to digital business and digital transformation (see
“Four Definitions Make a Digital Business Strategy Process More Effective”). This research
identified two different types of digital transformation:
■ Digital Optimization — This is the process of using digital technology to improve existing
operating processes and business models.
■ Digital Business Transformation — This is the process of exploiting digital technologies and
capabilities to create a robust, new digital business model.
In this use case, we have used the term “digital transformation” for reasons of brevity, but the intent
is that this use case covers both digital optimization and digital business transformation.
IT Portfolio and Asset Management
The tool must manage the current state of the IT portfolio and guide technology projects,
emphasizing factors such as cost optimization, revenue growth and risk mitigation.
■ IT CFO 1
— Wants cost optimization scenarios that can be executed quickly without requiring
data science or talent they do not currently have on staff to uncover savings.
■ Procurement Team — Wants to understand what the opportunities are to work with vendors at
the next license renewal that can be optimized.
Our main success factors for this use case were for vendors to demonstrate that:
■ The IT CFO has multiple potential scenarios he or she can present to the CFO that will meet or
exceed the financial target.
■ The procurement team has a targeted list of vendors and specific actions they can take for
future vendor agreements.
■ The IT CFO can quickly get the list he or she needs without having to perform extensive analysis.
■ The procurement team can have a continuously updated list of vendors and opportunities for
optimization of agreements.
Architecture Modeling
The tool must focus on modeling business processes and rules, information resources,
information exchange, business ecosystems, applications, and services.

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■ Enterprise Architecture Team — Guides the construction of the digital platform, ensuring a
staged approach in building a minimum viable architecture.
■ Product Team — Wants the ability to connect their product roadmaps to higher-level strategy
roadmaps and to illustrate how product functionality supports a minimum viable product
approach.
■ Data Science Team — Wants to ensure that all knowledge captured encompasses a
representation, formal naming and definition of categories, properties, and relations between the
concepts, data and entities that substantiate one, many or all domains of discourse.
■ Application Team — Wants the ability to track metrics to measure solution complexity, stability,
cyclicality, coupling and other factors. Additionally, they want to understand the ingredients of
their solutions with an emphasis on controlling how third-party libraries are used.
demonstration of the ability to:
■ Illustrate the detailed dependencies between platforms, applications, services and databases.
■ Define rules that allow for precise specification of layering and componentization, with an
emphasis on checking for noncompliance.
■ Perform detailed impact analysis on changes related to third-party libraries.
■ Leverage open APIs to extend, customize and integrate into a toolchain.
Vendors Added and Dropped

Added
■ Ardoq
■ Clausmark
■ Enterprise Architecture Solutions
■ LeanIX
■ ValueBlue
Dropped
None

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Honorable Mentions
Although we evaluated only 16 vendors in this year’s Critical Capabilities report due to the inclusion
and exclusion criteria set below, there are many other vendors worthy of consideration that did not
qualify, including:
■ Atoll Technologies
■ Changepoint
■ Dragon1
■ Enterprise Evolver
■ InQuisient
■ Ins-pi This research note is restricted to the personal use of [email protected].
■ iteratec
■ QPR Software
■ ServiceNow
Inclusion Criteria
To be included in this Critical Capabilities research, EA tool vendors must:
■ Fit into one of the following categories:
■ Have 2018 EA tool licensing revenue of either $7.5 million or more per year
■ Have 50% year-over-year revenue growth
■ Have added at least five net new logos/companies as paying customers from midsize to large
enterprises in 2018.
■ Have tools positioned to address the marketplace for EA tools (using Gartner’s definition of EA).
■ Possess all the following capabilities:
■ Be based on a repository or metamodel
■ Include modeling capabilities across the four main viewpoints of EA
■ Provide a range of decision analysis capabilities
■ Support a range of presentation views for different types of stakeholders

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■ Include features to administer user access rights, security and tool features
■ Be configurable for different types of users and environments
■ Support frameworks and standards, while enabling customization according to user needs
■ Deliver all features and functions in a readily usable, intuitive manner
■ Have an active presence (an office or official partner) in at least two of the major global regional
markets and compete in all those markets. (We define the major global regions as the
Asia/Pacific [APAC] region; Europe, the Middle East and Africa [EMEA]; North America; and South
America.)
■ Permit Gartner to acquire survey data from a minimum of five and a maximum of 10 customers
that have not been customer references in this Critical Capabilities research in the past three
years. These customers should represent production deployments of the most recent software
version in the past 12 months (during the customer survey period of the research process for
this Critical Capabilities assessment). They must have used the product version to be shown in
the vendor briefings and customer production for at least three months.
Table 1: Weighting for Critical Capabilities in Use Cases
Making Rearchitecting
IT Portfolio
Critical Smarter the Enterprise Arc
Innovation and Asset
Capabilities Decisions for Mo
Management
Faster Transformation
Decision 35% 10% 20% 30% 10

Analysis
Innovation 10% 40% 25% 5% 5%
Modeling 10% 10% 5% 25% 50
Presentation 20% 20% 25% 15% 20
Usability 25% 20% 25% 25% 15
Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 10
As of 1 August 2019

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This methodology requires analysts to identify the critical capabilities for a class of
products/services. Each capability is then weighted in terms of its relative importance for specific
product/service use cases.
Critical Capabilities Rating

Each of the products/services has been evaluated on the critical capabilities on a scale of 1 to 5; a
score of 1 = Poor (most or all defined requirements are not achieved), while 5 = Outstanding
(significantly exceeds requirements).
Table 2: Product/Service Rating on Critical Capabilities
Critical BOC
Ardoq Avolution BiZZdesign Clausmark
Capabilities Group
Decision 3.5 4.5 4.5 4.0 3.5

Analysis
Innovation 3.8 3.5 3.5 3.3 1.0
Modeling 4.0 4.5 4.5 4.0 3.0
Presentation 4.0 4.0 3.5 3.5 3.5
Usability 3.0 3.5 4.0 3.0 3.5
As of 1 August 2019
Table 3 shows the product/service scores for each use case. The scores, which are generated by
multiplying the use-case weightings by the product/service ratings, summarize how well the critical
capabilities are met for each use case.
Table 3: Product Score in Use Cases
BOC
Use Cases Ardoq Avolution BiZZdesign Clausmark
Group

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BOC
Use Cases Ardoq Avolution BiZZdesign Clausmark
Group
Making 3.56 4.05 4.08 3.58 3.20

Smarter
Decisions
Faster
Innovation 3.67 3.80 3.80 3.42 2.45
Rearchitecting 3.60 3.88 3.88 3.45 2.85

the Enterprise
for This research note is restricted to the personal use of [email protected].
Transformation
IT Portfolio and 3.59 4.13 4.18 3.64 3.25

Asset
Management
Architecture 3.79 4.20 4.18 3.72 3.13

Modeling
As of 1 August 2019
To determine an overall score for each product/service in the use cases, multiply the ratings in
Table 2 by the weightings shown in Table 1.
Evidence
■ For this Critical Capabilities assessment, Gartner’s primary research included analysis of product
demonstrations.
■ At the start of the research process for the related Magic Quadrant, all invited vendors were
asked to supply contact details for a minimum of five to 10 new reference customers that
generally represented the requirements of the inclusion criteria. This information was used to
invite customers to complete an online survey.
■ A total of 112 reference customers from 16 vendors responded to the survey, which concluded
on 31 July 2019.

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Gartner analysts also acquired insights from several hundred clients through the Gartner inquiry
process, one-on-one meetings at events and customer reviews on Gartner’s Peer Insights page.
These provided directional support for opinions derived from earlier data.
1
A hybrid IT and finance person, usually an executive role that reports to the CIO and is
responsible for establishing a tight connection between the IT organization and its partners in
finance. This role is often seen in organizations that have several billion in revenue and large IT
departments (greater than 1,000 employees).
Note 1
Gartner’s Definition of Enterprise Architecture (EA)
Enterprise architecture (EA) is a discipline for proactively and holistically leading enterprise
responses to disruptive forces by identifying and analyzing the execution of change toward desired
business vision and outcomes. Mainstream viewpoints of EA include:
■ Business architecture, which guides people, process and organizational change
■ Information architecture, which focuses on the consistent sharing of information across the
enterprise
■ Solution architecture, which develops a direction for managing the portfolios of to-be solutions
■ Technical architecture, which focuses on developing the technical infrastructure
Note 2
Action-Oriented, Signature-Ready Deliverables
These are deliverables that directly drive or guide change by initiating projects or providing
direction to change projects. An example of an action-oriented, signature-ready deliverable is a
business change roadmap. These deliverables are supported by diagnostic deliverables that help
to show why action should be taken.
Note 3
Diagnostic Deliverables
These are deliverables that provide the details and results of the analysis. An example of a
diagnostic deliverable is a representation of a future-state architecture.
Critical Capabilities Methodology

This methodology requires analysts to identify the critical capabilities for a class of products or
services. Each capability is then weighted in terms of its relative importance for specific product or
service use cases. Next, products/services are rated in terms of how well they achieve each of the

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critical capabilities. A score that summarizes how well they meet the critical capabilities for each
use case is then calculated for each product/service.
"Critical capabilities" are attributes that differentiate products/services in a class in terms of their
quality and performance. Gartner recommends that users consider the set of critical capabilities as
some of the most important criteria for acquisition decisions.
In defining the product/service category for evaluation, the analyst first identifies the leading uses
for the products/services in this market. What needs are end-users looking to fulfill, when
considering products/services in this market? Use cases should match common client deployment
scenarios. These distinct client scenarios define the Use Cases.
The analyst then identifies the critical capabilities. These capabilities are generalized groups of
features commonly required by this class of products/services. Each capability is assigned a level
of importance in fulfilling that particular need; some sets of features are more important than
others, depending on the use case being evaluated.
Each vendor’s product or service is evaluated in terms of how well it delivers each capability, on a
five-point scale. These ratings are displayed side-by-side for all vendors, allowing easy
comparisons between the different sets of features.
Ratings and summary scores range from 1.0 to 5.0:
1 = Poor or Absent: most or all defined requirements for a capability are not achieved
2 = Fair: some requirements are not achieved
3 = Good: meets requirements
4 = Excellent: meets or exceeds some requirements
5 = Outstanding: significantly exceeds requirements
To determine an overall score for each product in the use cases, the product ratings are multiplied
by the weightings to come up with the product score in use cases.
The critical capabilities Gartner has selected do not represent all capabilities for any product;
therefore, may not represent those most important for a specific use situation or business
objective. Clients should use a critical capabilities analysis as one of several sources of input
about a product before making a product/service decision.
Document Revision History

Critical Capabilities for Enterprise Architecture Tools - 24 October 2018
Critical Capabilities for Enterprise Architecture Tools - 27 February 2018
Critical Capabilities for Enterprise Architecture Tools - 9 January 2017

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Critical Capabilities for Enterprise Architecture Tools - 7 December 2015
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What are the common client deployment scenarios for EA tools?

What are the common client deployment scenarios for EA tools?

What are the critical capabilities that are evaluated for EA tools?

What are the critical capabilities that are evaluated for EA tools?

Critical Capabilities for Enterprise Architecture Tools

Published 16 December 2019 - ID G00377137 - 54 min read

By Analysts James McGovern, Marty Resnick

EA tools augment high-impact, business-outcome-driven EA programs. When selecting a tool,

This Critical Capabilities is related to other research:

View All Magic Quadrants and Critical Capabilities

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

What You Need to Know

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

This research note is restricted to the personal use of [email protected].

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Figure 2. Vendors’ Product Scores for the Innovation Use Case

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

Avolution This research note is restricted to the personal use of [email protected].

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

Clausmark’s highest ratings are for the This

Enterprise Architecture Solutions

team that understands how to structure complex data relationships.

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

■ Using an EA tool to drive innovation — Innovation is key to digital transformation.

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

■ Using an EA tool to manage IT portfolio and assessment management — EA tools must

We based our scoring mainly on what the Thisvendors demonstrated

Product/Service Class Deﬁnition

■ Architecture governance and assurance

■ Technology standards and compliance

Gartner, Inc. | 377137

■ Enhance decision making — 80%

■ Create internal/operational efﬁciencies — 74%

■ Improve compliance and risk management — 53%

■ Improve business process outcomes — 47%

■ Improve business process agility — 42%

■ Drive innovation — 35%

■ Improve customer relations/service — 23%

■ Reduce time to market — 21%

■ Improve supplier or partner relations — 7%

■ Drive revenue growth — 5%

■ Competitive costs — 56%

■ Functional breadth — 46%

■ Technological innovation — 45%

■ Strong customer focus — 43%

■ Compelling vision — 42%

■ Program and portfolio management

■ Enterprise agile planning