Enterprise-level, architecture-based information management planning (EAP) is the most successful approach to planning and executing an IT strategy in complex, multi-platform enterprise situations.

The business benefits of an IT architecture are:

• Better decision-making and planning.
• Better communication among organizations and IT organizations within the enterprise
• Increased focus on the strategic use of emerging technologies to manage the enterprise's information
• Increased consistency, accuracy, timeliness, integrity, quality, availability, access and sharing of IT-managed information across the enterprise
• Ability to highlight opportunities for building greater quality, scalability, and flexibility into applications without increasing cost
• Achieving economies of scale by providing mechanisms for sharing services
• Expediting integration of legacy and new systems and supporting migration of legacy applications involving EA

The key steps of the Enterprise Architecture Planning method are:

• Enterprise Architecture Definition
  This phase focuses on confirming the scope and goals of the architecture, identifying the sources of information and the areas of subject matter expertise, creating a performing team and environment, and establishing the decision making process for the project.
  
  
• Architecture Development
  This phase focuses on documenting the existing situation, envisioning the future situation, creating a transition path from the existing to the future situation, and creating artifacts, repositories, tools and processes that will support the next phase, architecture usage.
  
  
• Architecture Usage
  This phase focuses on enacting the process, organization, skills and methodology changes decided during the architecture creation, as well as starting the execution of the transition path.
  
  
• Architecture Maintenance
  This phase begins in parallel with the creation of the architecture and continues throughout the lifecycle. It focuses on the institutionalization of the architecture process, the transfer of knowledge, and the creation of adaptive feedback processes to inform the architecture development with the most recent business changes.