The central drivers for Enterprise Architecture Management are the goals and areas of concern of your stakeholders. Valuable tools for answering stakeholder questions are visualizations and reports.

Visualizations allow you to see different information combined in one view, often much quicker to understand than text and easier to remember. Ordering, of elements, coloring, size, forms etc help with a fast analysis and understanding. The brain just loves them!

For the domain of Enterprise Architecture, each visualization presents a specific view of the overall architecture and is based on stakeholder perspectives. These views reveal where interdependencies exist and highlight the impact of changes. The most common EAM visualizations – which are often configured according to stakeholder-specific requirements – are:

1. Relationship Visualisations, e.g.
   1. Clusters
   2. Maps
   3. Landscapes
   4. Graphs
2. Time-based Visualizations, e.g.
   1. Line-Charts, Plots
   2. Roadmaps (sometimes called Gantt Charts, Timeline, Life-Cycle or Masterplan)
3. Number Charts
   1. Pie-Charts
   2. Bar-Charts
   3. Portfolio Charts
   4. …
4. Semi or unstructured drawings (Trees, Bridges, …)

What is your favourite or most used visualization type?

Any visualisation type you are missing? Feel free to send in your favorite visualizations that resonated well with your stakeholders.