Enterprise architecture change planner

What it does

Bring goals and a system list. Map what each one serves, then plan changes with owners and exit checks.

What goes in and out

You give it

• Your business goals, scope and time horizon.
• The people who own decisions and sign off.
• Your list of capabilities, applications and data, with costs and limits.
• Known gaps in your evidence (optional).
• Source text (optional)

You get

• A portfolio view that links capabilities to applications, owners and risks.
• A current, target and transition plan with each claim marked as fact, assumption, decision or open question.
• A record of who decides what, with a path for conflicts.
• A phased roadmap with dependencies, owners and the proof each step needs.

How the task works

• Map outcome to portfolio. Connect value-stream stages and capabilities to applications, authoritative information, dependencies and owners.
• Compare reachable states. Define the target from explicit principles, preserve current-state evidence and test duplication assumptions.
• Place decision rights. Compare centralized/federated arrangements and name consultation, exceptions and conflict escalation.
• Sequence the transition. Give increments dependencies, coexistence assumptions, exit evidence and accountable owners.

Full instructions

• Add the whole skill folder to your AI tool, including the references and templates. The steps rely on those files.
• If your tool cannot take a folder, paste the main instructions and each reference and template file into the chat.
• Paste your goals, scope, time horizon and system list. Name who decides.
• Ask your AI to follow the skill and plan your enterprise architecture changes.
• Check the claims marked as assumptions or open questions. Fill the gaps with real facts.
• Hand the approved roadmap to your delivery team for a detailed plan.

Full instruction file

Enterprise Architecture

Use this skill to make enterprise-wide structure and change legible without turning architecture into a shelf of diagrams. Connect outcomes to capabilities, value streams, applications, information, technology, ownership, and a feasible sequence of change.

Before you start

Use the material below to do this job. If facts or tool access are missing, explain what you can finish and what must wait.

What you need (use your own material or the linked skill):

• Your question (yours): the decision or problem, and what a good outcome looks like.

Makes it better (optional):

• Source text (yours): a long source in full: an article, a video or talk transcript, or notes from a book, with its title, author and link.

How to start:

1. Look first. Use what they've already attached, pasted or put in their about-me note. In a coding assistant with file access, look in the project too for these by name.
2. Check what's missing. Look for your question, source text. They can attach files, paste the details, or share a file path your assistant can read. Ask only for missing facts that change the result. If they ask you to start with what they have, complete the parts you can and mark the gaps.
3. Do the job. Follow the skill below with the facts and tools you have. Mark each gap with MISSING: where it belongs and never invent a fact to fill it.

Workflow

1. Frame the enterprise question. State the outcome, scope, time horizon, stakeholders, constraints, authority, and evidence gaps. Separate strategy, product commitments, operational facts, and architectural hypotheses.
2. Map the landscape. Identify capabilities and value streams, then relate applications, information objects, technology dependencies, owners, costs, risks, duplication, and lifecycle status. Use references/capability-value-stream-and-portfolio-mapping.md.
3. Describe states. Record the current state from evidence, define a target state from explicit principles and outcomes, and identify constraints that make a direct jump unsafe or unrealistic. Use references/current-target-and-transition-architecture.md.
4. Choose the operating model. Compare centralized, federated, and hybrid arrangements against decision locality, coordination cost, required coherence, skills, and risk. Do not prescribe reporting lines or compensation. Use references/enterprise-operating-model-and-roles.md.
5. Make authority executable. Assign decision rights, consultation, standards, exceptions, escalation, and feedback to named roles. Use references/federated-governance-and-decision-rights.md.
6. Engage and publish for use. Adapt views to stakeholder jobs, make uncertainty and provenance visible, and maintain accessible, findable information with a review owner. Use references/stakeholder-engagement-and-architecture-information.md.
7. Sequence change. Connect transition increments to capabilities, outcomes, dependencies, investment assumptions, and exit evidence. Use templates/transition-architecture-roadmap.md; hand approved delivery plans to implementation-planning or migration-engineering as appropriate.

Output Contract

Produce an enterprise context brief, capability/application portfolio view, current-target-transition assessment, operating-model and decision-rights record, or transition roadmap. Every material claim must be labeled as evidence, assumption, decision, or open question and have a source or named owner.

Ownership Boundaries

• System boundaries, runtime behavior, architecture characteristics, and solution tradeoffs belong to software-architecture.
• API contracts and API portfolio mechanics belong to api-design-and-evolution.
• Data platforms, data products, data models, and data governance belong to data-architect.
• Reporting structures, team topology, talent, compensation, and culture belong to org-design; this skill records organizational dependencies without designing HR systems.
• Product bets, product outcomes, and product sequencing belong to product-roadmapping-and-portfolio.
• Technology adoption posture, build-versus-buy, standards, and technology governance mechanics belong to technology-radar.
• Corporate direction, competitive choices, capital allocation, and M&A belong to strategy-frameworks.
• Process optimization and operational execution belong to operational-design; enterprise architecture may use its findings as evidence.
• Approved cross-system execution belongs to implementation-planning and migration-engineering, not this skill.
• Cross-project program coordination, shared capacity, integrated benefits, and transformation delivery belong to technical-program-management; this skill provides the architecture evidence and decision-rights inputs.

When Not To Use

Use the narrow owner when the request has no enterprise portfolio, cross-domain alignment, operating-model, or transition-architecture question. Do not use this skill to produce a solution design, organization chart, product roadmap, technology radar entry, data architecture, API contract, or corporate strategy verdict.

After this

When you've handed it back, suggest what they could do next in one short question. It's a suggestion: if they're done, that's fine. Offer these, and say they can type their own:

• The Enterprise customer onboarding planner. It takes the plan.
• The Enterprise account deal planner. It takes the document. If they pick one and that skill is added here, carry straight on with what you just made. If not, give the link and say what to bring.

Reference Guide

Completion

Stop when the enterprise scope and decision owner are explicit, the portfolio and state claims have evidence or named gaps, transition increments have dependencies and exit evidence, decision rights include conflict handling, and specialist handoffs are recorded. Escalate unresolved authority or strategy conflicts rather than resolving them by assumption.