Towards a Reference Architecture of Intent for Information Systems Strategic Alignment

Enterprise architecture enables strategic alignment through creation of a unified business and IS view of the target state of the business. Using a design science approach, this paper proposes an intent-based technique as an extension to existing modeling techniques for strategic alignment. The proposed approach defines a reference architecture of enterprise intent that includes vocabulary, rules, and structure for development of purposefully aligned strategic-level enterprise architecture. The proposed approach results in interacting hierarchies that can be analyzed through network science approaches.