Steven H. Spewak (1951-2004) was an American management consultant, author, and lecturer on enterprise architectures, who influenced the direction of enterprise architecture thinking, especially in government.
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Spewak was born in Philadelphia in 1951. He earned both B.A. and M.A. degrees at Case Western Reserve University, and earned a Ph.D. in business administration at the University of Michigan.[1]
In 1986 he was Software Editor at Continental Insurance, where he headed a data modeling project. Eventually he ran a 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.
He 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 age 53.[2]
Spewak has written a book about Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP), which he defines as “the process of defining architectures for the use of information in support of the business and the plan for implementing those architectures”. Spewak’s approach to EAP is similar to that taken by DOE in that the business mission is the primary driver. That is followed by the data required to satisfy the mission, followed by the applications that are built using that data, and finally by the technology to implement the applications. This hierarchy of activity is represented in the figure on the right, in which the layers are implemented in order, from top to bottom.[3]
Based on the Business Systems Planning (BSP) approach developed by John Zachman, EAP 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.[3]
His approach to Federal Enterprise Architecture has helped organizations with modeling, business strategy planning, process improvement, data warehousing, and various support systems designs, data administration standards, object-oriented and information engineering methodologies, and project management. The Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP) methodology is beneficial to understanding the further definition of the Federal Enterprise Architecture.[4]
Dr.Spewak was a founding Partner of Enterprise Architects, Inc. Along with his two partners, Frank Digaetano and Stephan DeVocht, Steve taught 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.
Spewak co-wrote several text books on enterprise architecture. A selection:[5]