Towards consistent demarcation of enterprise design domains

Abstract

This article supports the ideology that enterprise engineering (EE) could add more value if EE researchers focus on facilitating effective conversations within design teams to create a common understanding of the enterprise. One way of creating a common understanding is to define and demarcate enterprise design domains in a consistent way. Literature presents different conceptualisations for demarcating design domains, without using a systematic demarcation rationale. As an example, this article introduces Hoogervorst’s approach and associated enterprise design domains to highlight practical difficulties when emerging design principles are applied to four main design domains, as defined by Hoogervorst. Based on the suggestion to apply the basic system design process to demarcate the main enterprise design domains in a consistent way and addressing the need for additional design domains, we present four alternative enterprise design domains, developed via design science research. We also demonstrate the usefulness of the new design domains by presenting several examples of enterprise design cycles that occur during enterprise design.