Steven Spewak

Steven Howard Spewak (1951 – March 26, 2004) was an American management consultant, author, and lecturer on enterprise architectures, known for the development of Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP).

Biography Born in Philadelphia, Spewak earned both his B.A. and his M.A. degree at Case Western Reserve University, and earned his Ph.D. in business administration at the University of Michigan in 1981 with the thesis "Analysis of dynamics of the logical design of information systems".

Early 1980s Spewak started his career in industry. In 1986 he became software editor at Continental Insurance, where he headed a data modeling project. Early 1990s he started his management consultant practice with offices in Princeton, N.J., and Washington. He worked with government agencies, and national and international organizations, and was a frequent lecturer on enterprise architecture planning.

Spewak has been the Chief Technical Editor of the "Data Resource Management Journal" and "Database Management Information Service". He died on 26 April 2004 in Alexandria VA, at the age of 53.

Work Enterprise Architecture Planning

In his 1992 book Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP), Spewak defined Enterprise Architecture Planning as "the process of defining architectures for the use of information in support of the business and the plan for implementing those architectures". Enterprise Architecture Planning is based on the Business Systems Planning (BSP) approach developed by John Zachman in the 1980. It takes a business-oriented approach to architecture planning to provide: data quality, access to data, adaptability to changing requirements, data interoperability and sharing, and cost containment. The ultimate goal of an Enterprise Architecture is to define practical and implementable application and technology projects along with those projects required to prepare the organization for its future IT environment. This view counters the more traditional view that applications should be defined before data needs are determined or provided for.

Enterprise Architects, Inc. Spewak was founding partner of Enterprise Architects, Inc. Along with two partners, Frank Digaetano and Stephan DeVocht he tutored several generations of Enterprise Architects, and performed many consulting assignments for Fortune 500 clients, US and Canadian Federal Government organizations, as well as State, Local and Tribal government bodies.

Since the publication of his seminal book, he and his partners introduced enhancements to the EAP methodology such as updates for technology architecture, expansion of implementation requirements, and methods for calculating planning project duration and effort. They also developed a planning tool (EAP Toolset Templates), and the StratTac Group LLC Planning Templates, to assist organizations EAP efforts.

Publications Spewak authored and co-authored several books, papers and articles on enterprise architecture and related topics. A selection: 1981. Analysis of dynamics of the logical design of information systems. University of Michigan. 1993. Enterprise Architecture Planning: Developing a Blueprint for Data, Applications, and Technology. With S. C. Hill. Boston, QED Pub. Group.

Articles, a selection 1980. "A pragmatic approach to database design," VLDB '80 Proceedings of the sixth international conference on Very Large Data Bases. Vol 6. p. 151-152 1987. "Introducing Data Administration into a Business Organization". With Susan E. Smylie et al. in: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Entity-Relationship Approach. p. 47-51 1992. "Developing a Blueprint for Data, Applications and Technology: Enterprise Architecture Planning," QED Technical Publishing Group 2006. "Updating the Enterprise Architecture Planning Model". With M. Tiemann. Journal of Enterprise Architecture, May 2006. p. 11-19