Complexity In Enterprise Architectures - Conceptualization And Introduction Of A Measure From A System Theoretic Perspective

Measurability is the essential basis for management. Although the management of complexity is a central task of CIOs and IT-architects, literature has not proposed a concrete measure to quantify complexity in enterprise architectures so far. Against this background the contribution of this paper is a) the introduction of a system theoretic conceptualization of complexity in enterprise architectures and b) a measure to quantify complexity in enterprise architectures. We define complexity as the number and the heterogeneity of the components and relations of an enterprise architecture. The proposed measure to quantify complexity in an enterprise architecture is based on Entropy, i.e. an established measure in various fields of research such as software engineering or economics. The applicability of the conceptualization and the proposed measure to quantify complexity is demonstrated in cooperation with IT-architects of an IT organization of a leading global universal bank.