Compile a list of all your applications — ideally from a CMDB dump, or failing that, a survey of key stakeholders. This is the “what” in the MVEA equation.

• Focus on CRITICAL and CORE applications first (those supporting primary business functions)
• Add a quick technical assessment for each: Good / Average / Poor
• Note whether applications are SaaS, cloud IaaS, or on-premise
• Identify key interfaces — which applications depend on each other for data?

Map which business units use which applications as their core tools. This overlay creates a visual heat-map showing alignment — and gaps — between the business and its technology.

• Use a spreadsheet to create the mapping — no specialised tool needed
• Visualise by overlaying coloured boxes on your functional model diagram
• Immediately visible: which business areas are well-served, and which have no supporting application

Get your project list from the PMO and link each project to the applications it will change, replace, or create. This answers “how” the business is changing its technology.

• Include new applications being introduced and old ones being retired
• Mark each application’s investment status: Invested, Maintained, Retiring, New
• Identify project interdependencies — two projects touching the same application affect each other

Extract the vision, mission, goals, and strategic drivers from business strategy documents, and link them to your projects. This answers “why” — and makes the architecture strategically credible.

• Extract key goals and drivers — even a brief bullet-point summary is enough
• Map each project to the strategic goals it supports
• Identify projects with no clear strategic linkage — these are candidates for deferral
• Build a one-page roadmap: current state → strategic initiatives → target state

Replace the organisational model with a Business Capability Model (BCM) — a more stable, function-based view of the business that survives restructures and re-orgs.

• Create a Business Capability catalogue in SharePoint
• Build a Visio BCM diagram linked to the catalogue
• Map applications to business capabilities (builds on the org-unit mapping from Stage 1)
• The overlay reveals gaps — capabilities with no supporting application

Expand beyond applications to catalogue all technology: hardware, operating systems, databases, middleware and tools. This sets the foundation for technology standards management.

• Extend the application catalogue or create a separate technology catalogue
• Classify each item: Application, Database, OS, Hardware, Middleware, etc.
• Add a Standards Status field: Current Standard / Under Evaluation / Retiring / Retired
• Run a report: how many out-of-date OS versions do you have? How many duplicates?

Integration is almost universally underestimated. An interface catalogue gives you the first clear picture of your integration landscape — and the evidence to invest in improving it.

• Create an interface catalogue as a SharePoint List
• Include every integration — including manual ones
• Visualise with a diagram showing application-to-application flows
• Use this to develop an integration strategy for Stage 3

Enrich your integration model by linking the interface catalogue to data entities. This begins to define actual data flows between applications.

• For each interface, identify which data entities flow across it
• Start at a high level — accuracy improves as project work drills down
• Link to interface specifications where they exist
• This lays the foundation for an integration strategy in Stage 4

Survey the business to score each architectural element. Combine the scores into an overall Business Capability maturity rating that drives targeted investment.

• Assess each element using Good / Average / Poor (resist over-engineering)
• Combine element scores: all Good → Very Good; all Poor → Very Poor; mixed → Average
• Heat-map the BCM to make Very Poor capabilities immediately visible
• Use insights to prioritise investment in the next project portfolio round

Bring in the server and infrastructure layer, linked to locations. This reveals performance, resilience and compliance risks invisible to application-level analysis alone.

• Create a Server Catalogue linked to Applications and physical/cloud locations
• Include OS versions and whether servers are physical, IaaS or SaaS
• Identify applications hosted in geographically distant locations from their users
• Develop a Geographic Architecture Model for multi-site organisations

Add Services and Products, linking them to Business Capabilities and Org Units. Investments in capabilities can now be measured by their impact on customer-facing services.

• Catalogue services and products in the repository
• Link to the capabilities that deliver them
• Model how capability improvement impacts product and service quality
• Enables evidence-based investment decisions at the service level

Add Network, Security and Integration models linked to the server catalogue. The complete chain from business service to infrastructure is now visible and measurable.

• Network architecture linked to application infrastructure
• Security architecture documented and linked to risk
• Impact of infrastructure failure can be modelled up to the business service level
• Investment in infrastructure justified by business service impact

Link Organisation Units to Locations to enhance the geographic model. At a micro level, model the interactions between teams to improve communication and capability performance.

• Geographic model enhanced with org-unit presence at each location
• Communication pathways between teams modelled and assessed
• Remote and distributed team design informed by the model

Incorporate financial data — technology costs, operating costs and people costs. The architecture repository is now a near-complete digital twin of the business.

• Technology costs categorised using TBM (Technology Business Management) taxonomy
• Operating cost data mapped to capabilities and services
• Scenario modelling: “If we invest in Capability X, what is the projected service and financial impact?”
• Innovation opportunities identified through holistic design analysis