Enterprise principles provide a basis for decision-making throughout an enterprise, and inform how the organization sets about fulfilling its mission. Such enterprise-level principles are commonly found in governmental and not-for-profit organizations, but are encountered in commercial organizations also, as a means of harmonizing decision-making across a distributed organization. In particular, they are a key element in a successful architecture governance strategy (see Architecture Governance).
Information Technology (IT) principles provide guidance on the use and deployment of all IT resources and assets across the enterprise. They are developed in order to make the information environment as productive and cost-effective as possible.
Architecture principles are a subset of IT principles that relate to architecture work. They reflect a level of consensus across the enterprise, and embody the spirit and thinking of the enterprise architecture. Architecture principles can be further divided into:
o Principles that govern the architecture process, affecting the development, maintenance, and use of the enterprise architecture
o Principles that govern the implementation of the architecture, establishing the first tenets and related guidance for designing and developing information systems
These sets of principles form a hierarchy, in that IT principles will be informed by, and elaborate on, the principles at the enterprise level; and architecture principles will likewise be informed by the principles at the two higher levels.
