Czech Government Enterprise Architecture: A Case Study by

Czech Government
Enterprise Architecture
A Case Study by:
Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic
Pavel Hrabe, Chief Methodologist of National eGovernment

Architecture
This is a Joint Publication of The Open Group and the

International Telecommunication Union from the Government
Enterprise Architecture Work Group
October 2022
Czech Government Enterprise Architecture
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www.opengroup.org A Case Study Published by The Open Group 2

Table of Contents
Executive Summary................................................................... 4
Introduction .............................................................................. 5
Czech eGovernment History ........................................................................... 5
Core Building Blocks of eGovernment ......................................................... 11
Problem Statement .................................................................. 14

Coordination of Digital Services ................................................................... 14
Capability to Efficiently Manage Government ICT ...................................... 14
Approaches Considered and Selected ....................................... 15

Architecture Authority Based on Government Enterprise Architecture ........ 15
Preparation ............................................................................. 16
Legislation ..................................................................................................... 16
Institutionalization ......................................................................................... 17
Strategy ......................................................................................................... 18
Methodology ................................................................................................. 19
Enterprise Architecture Opportunities Identified ..................... 27

Solution Architecture and Implementation Plan ....................... 28
Putting Government Enterprise Architecture into Practice ........................... 28
Management of ICT Project Planning, Approval, and Realization Process .. 31
Deployment of New Shared eGovernment Services ..................................... 32
Risks and Mitigation Strategies ................................................ 35

Lessons Learned and Applicability........................................... 38
References............................................................................... 40
Acronyms & Abbreviations ..................................................... 41
About the Authors ................................................................... 43
Acknowledgements .................................................................. 44
About The Open Group ........................................................... 45

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Executive Summary
This document describes the experience of the Czech Republic with the introduction of Enterprise
Architecture as a strategic management technique to help with the planning, development, and
deployment of digital services, including government achievements and lessons learned.
Specifically this document will focus on:
• The history of the development of Electronic Government (eGovernment) in the Czech
Republic, showing the need for strong coordination based on architectural methods
• The role of the Chief Architect of eGovernment as a dedicated authority for cross-sectoral
eGovernment and Information Technology (IT) coordination, using Government Enterprise
Architecture
• The strategic, legislative, and methodological anchoring of this authority, based mainly on the
adaptation of The Open Group TOGAF® and ArchiMate® Standards
• The conditions and tools for the application and enforcement of the coordinated development
of eGovernment in the Czech Republic, in particular the process of approving concepts and
projects by this authority
• The development of shared central services and promotion of their reuse, maintaining the
National Architecture Framework (NAF) – in Czech, Národní Architektonický Rámec (NAR),
the National Architecture Plan (NAP), and the Government Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) Strategy
Since at least 2007, the approach to the Czech Government Enterprise Architecture has been guided
by the “once-only” principle branded as the “circulation of data, not citizens” rule. This rule is
reflected in the basic pillars of eGovernment in the Czech Republic and now realized through the
sharing of client data from the government’s “interconnected data pool” using the service channels
connecting the public administration agencies. In this respect, The Open Group vision:
Boundaryless Information Flow™ fully supports the vision and practice covered in this document.

Introduction
This document presents how the Czech Republic has used Enterprise Architecture as a management method
to enable the end-to-end integration of business and technology to provide a coherent vision for the future of
government, and to achieve further progress in planning, managing, and supervising the development of
digital eGovernment services.
The Enterprise Architecture authority was situated in the Ministry of the Interior through the role of Chief
Information Officer (CIO) and digitization coordinator organization in the Czech Government.
The application of Enterprise Architecture as a method was first seriously considered by the Government in
the preparatory project of the e2020 consortium in 2013 – 2014, and then again in 2015. Even in terms of
strategies and the development of eGovernment, it was not built from scratch.
However, even massive investments in the basic pillars of eGovernment during previous decades have not
led to desired effects, such as a reduction of administrative burden, an acceleration of client case-handling,
and the cost reduction of public administration services. This was reflected both in everyday practice as well
as by the benchmark indexes of international organizations.
It was necessary to proceed in two directions: firstly, to identify, legislate, and build the missing centrally
shared eGovernment services, especially those focused on digital servicing of public administration clients;
and secondly, at the same time to force hundreds of individual government agencies to advance in their
Digital Transformation and to build their eGovernment solutions uniformly, with full utilization of these
shared services. It was at this time that the Czech Government Enterprise Architecture began to play its
irreplaceable role.
Czech eGovernment History

The history of eGovernment in the Czech Republic began before 2000. In 1998, the Council for State
Information Policy was appointed as a consultative body for the government on information society matters.
In 1999, the government approved the first strategy for the development of the information society: “State
Information Policy – The Way to an Informed Society”.
Until then, all requests submitted to the Czech Government by citizens and organizations were exclusively
traditional; i.e., paper-based or delivered in person. Each time, they had to be submitted separately to every
office, over and over again, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The Original Method of Service and Communication with Clients until the Year 2000
The initial strategy of digitization relied on the use of electronic signatures and the replacement of paper-
based requests by electronic ones. This was made possible in 2000 by the adoption of Act Number (No.)
227/2000 Collection (Coll.)1 on electronic signatures. In the same year, the often-amended Act No. 365/2000
Coll.2 on information systems of public administration, which forms the backbone of the long-term
management of public administration informatics in the Czech Republic, was also adopted.
In October 2003, the Public Administration Portal3 was launched. Client service in the years 1999 – 2006 is
shown in Figure 2.
1
Refer to: https://www.mvcr.cz/soubor/act-on-electronic-signatures.aspx.
2
Refer to: https://mytocz.eu/en/etoll/legislation.
3
See: portal.gov.cz.

Figure 2: The First Stage of Digitization in the Years 2000 – 2006: Documents with Electronic Signature
In 2007, the adoption of the Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART)
Administration Strategy for 2007 – 2015 followed. This strategy resulted in several important projects, the
most important of which established the basic pillars of the Czech eGovernment.
Already in 2007, the first contact point terminal out of the public terminals network was launched under the
Czech POINT4 brand. This network enabled citizens to obtain important statements and certificates; in
particular, a criminal record statement.5 The network expanded on a large scale throughout the Czech
Republic during 2009, also thanks to the substantial co-financing from the European Union Structural Funds.
By the end of 2009, the number of these assisted public administration points had reached 5,825 terminals
and covered more than 90% of municipalities in the Czech Republic.
The “Strategy for the Development of Information Society Services for 2008 – 2012”,6 published by the
Government Council for the Information Society (GCIS) in March 2008, was also crucial. Major objectives
of this strategy were:
• In 2009, launch of the Data Mailbox information system (a government-wide guaranteed email system)
• To develop an extended network of universal public administration contact points, allowing citizens to obtain
verified statements from selected registers
4
An abbreviation for: Czech Filing Verification Information National Terminal.
5
A public document stating that the citizen was not punished by a court.
6
Refer to: https://www.vlada.cz/assets/media-centrum/aktualne/strategie_rvis_final4301.doc.

• In 2010, launch base registries
• In 2010, allow all submissions to public administration to be made at any public administration contact point
within the existing network
• In 2010, complete the legislative process for all laws related to the fulfillment of the goals of this strategy
• In 2012, ensure the operation of all applications for health care, social care, administrative, judicial, and tax
procedures as well as infrastructure for the long-term saving and archiving of electronic documents
• In 2015, complete the process of information-based digitization, including digitization of geographic

information
An important step towards the fulfillment of this strategy was the adoption of Act No. 300/2008 Coll.7 on
electronic Acts and the authorized conversion of documents (eGovernment Act) and especially the projects
that followed, by which it was implemented.
In November 2009, the data mailboxes were made available as a tool for electronic Acts, and guaranteed
electronic communication with the state. These have become a key tool for communication with the state,
especially for the legal entities for which they were established on a mandatory and automatic basis.
In November 2009, the data mailboxes were made available as a tool for electronic Acts, and guaranteed
electronic communication with the state. These have become a key tool for communication with the state,
especially for the legal entities for which they were established on a mandatory and automatic basis. In
December 2012, the Data Mailbox information system also replaced the transactional part of the Public
Administration Portal, which was then terminated.
7
Refer to: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:097:0072:0084:EN:PDF.

Figure 3: The Second Stage of Digitization in the Years 2007 – 2011: Data Mailboxes and a Network of Contact Points
In the breakthrough year of 2009, Act No. 111/2009 Coll.8 on base registries was also adopted, which
resulted in one of the key pillars of digital public administration. It was the creation of central base registries
of public administration, as shown in Figure 3, which solved existing problems related to the inconsistency,
multiplicity, and outdated content of key government databases. The following registers have been designed
and created:
• Registry of Natural Persons (ROB)
• Registry of Economic Entities (ROS)
• Registry of Territorial Identification, Addresses, and Real Estates (RUIAN)
• Registry of Rights and Duties (RPP)
8
Refer to: https://www.msmt.cz/uploads/odbor_30/TF/Legislativa_a_metodicke_pokyny/Novela_2016/Zakon_o_vysokych_skolach_AJ.pdf.

Figure 4: The Third Level of Digitization in the Years 2012 – 2016: Base Registries
Based on the law, the National Registers Authority Organization was established in the following year and
implementation projects were launched. The implementation of the national base registries system was a
complex process, and therefore they were launched into productive operation from July 2012.
Hundreds of organizations – such as central public agencies and local administrations, regions, and
municipalities of various sizes – have connected to base registries. These agencies carried out the
identification of their clients’ databases, set up their regular updating, and significantly improved data
quality. Changes and updates of most frequently used reference data about clients of public administration
held in government databases (e.g., surname, residence) began to be automatically distributed to agencies.
Citizens no longer had to visit them.
A huge benefit for the whole society was the digital land administration and cadastre system, built gradually
since 1993, and the related services of “Cadastre Lookup”9 gradually built up to it.
Unfortunately, throughout 2012 – 2015, the drive of politicians and officials to go on with the Digital
Transformation of public services slightly faded, and the opportunities created by the implementation of base
registries and basic service channels were not fully exploited as originally intended, by supplying as many
services as possible. It was necessary to incite change.
9
Refer to: https://nahlizenidokn.cuzk.cz/.

Core Building Blocks of eGovernment

eGovernment is defined as the application of ICT to government functions and procedures to increase
efficiency, transparency, and citizen participation. A key term in Enterprise Architecture is the concept of a
potentially re-useable chunk of functionality called a building block. It is the basis for business
modularization that enables a continuous delivery of business value.
Key Building Blocks of Government Organization
Digital solutions are, could, and should be an integral part of all building blocks of a public administration
organization. A high-level view of the structure of building blocks of each individual public agency, as well
as public administration, is shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5: Key Building Blocks of Every Czech Government Organization – Level 1
What do the organizations we want to understand consist of? We can imagine the organization as a three-
dimensional cube, located in an external environment. By unrolling the surface of the cube into a two-
dimensional figure we get three areas complemented by one representing the environment.
This view allows us to distinguish:
• What the organization does for its surroundings
• What resources it has
• What motivates it
This can be seen in more detail in Figure 6.
These building blocks are permanent, existing at any time in the life of the organization, even in a period
without any strategic changes.

Figure 6: Key Building Blocks of Every Czech Government Organization – Levels 2 and 3
For some areas, this model of basic decomposition of the public administration body and core building blocks
is elaborated in more detail at Levels 4 and 5. The model serves as one of the pivotal points for the National
Architecture Framework (NAF), especially for the structure of its architectural domains, and for the content
of reference models of Business and Application Architecture. Please see Figure 8 or archi.gov.cz.
The executive, judicial, and legal powers must always be exercised by some organization, separate from the
power of the others. Therefore, as part of its main processes (functions), each of the organizations exercises
one type of these powers, and all other organizations, whether they exercise this type or one of the other two
types, are, in its view, part of its environment.
Czech eGovernment Building Blocks
When looking for basic blocks which constitute the means to support digital government, we can highlight
the most important IT and business building blocks using the structure of architectural domains of the NAF.
The structure of the building blocks of the eGovernment solution at Levels 2 and 3 is based on the structure
of government organizations and roughly corresponds to them, but is not identical.
Groups of building blocks are divided by their most common use according to domains of the Czech
Government Enterprise Architecture. Most building blocks aim to support the client focus of public servies;
for example, client digital identity, client trustworthy services, contact channels, and unified User
Experience/User Interface (UX/UI). The rest of them help public administration to inform governance, to
make their information systems interoperable and their technologies secure and reliable.

Figure 7 provides a more detailed view of centrally provided shared services, systems, and other structures
which every building block contains.
Figure 7: Building Blocks of Czech eGovernment in Architecture Domains – Level 3
Several building blocks of Czech eGovernment, such as the Central Mandate Registry, Central Payment
Services, or Central Client Accounting (Receivables & Payables) still have to be implemented and therefore
are not included in Figure 7.

Problem Statement
Coordination of Digital Services
Base registries, government information portals, government contact points, and data mailboxes were very
strong pillars and prerequisites for the development of digital service delivery, but they were not fully used in
all areas where it makes sense to provide user-friendly digital self-services or assisted digital services.
Pronounced pressure on the digitization of client services and the overall Digital Transformation of public
administrations was missing.
At the same time, each of the hundreds of agencies approached the design of solutions for digitization of their
operations completely individually and differently. So, each of them invented a new strategy again and again.
The solutions were inconsistent, complicated, and incomprehensible for the end users and unnecessarily
expensive in terms of investment and operation.
This may also be related to the fact that there was no respected and sufficiently capacity-equipped authority
in public administration that would show all agencies what the target form of a functional digitized
government should look like – an authority that would provide pragmatic, feasible models, and templates for
the most appropriate and cost-effective solutions (patterns); one that would use effective means to ensure and
monitor the implementation of digitization strategies.
Capability to Efficiently Manage Government ICT

Difficulties of changing the course of digital public administration services delivery resided in two key
aspects that were interrelated. In general, working in public administration in the Czech Republic is still
viewed as not sufficiently prestigious and attractive. It is not sufficiently paid, and public administration is
not sufficiently open or accessible for external job applicants. As a result, rather than attracting professionals
with a mix of capabilities, many government institutions are still represented by people with outdated skills
and rather low ambitions who are comfortable with the status quo and often resistant to change.
The resulting lack of professional and ICT skills in government agencies led to the creation of long-term and
excessive dependencies on their vendors of IT and digital solutions (vendor lock-in). These vendors have
taken full advantage of this account ownership while remaining compliant with the rules of public
procurement and, as a result, changes of huge monolithic legacy IT systems are extremely lengthy, inflexible,
and costly.

Approaches Considered and Selected

Architecture Authority Based on Government Enterprise Architecture
To solve the situation, since the beginning of the time period described by this document (2014), the only
approach considered and subsequently chosen was the use of government Enterprise Architecture. There are
many interesting definitions of Enterprise Architecture. We came up with this definition as a guideline for
own own project:
“Enterprise Architecture is a means of humble and holistic exploring and understanding of the Enterprise as
a whole in all possible consequences to make informed decisions.”
One half of the importance of architecture is in knowing and understanding the structure and behaviour of an
organization. The second half is about communicating this clearly and directly.
We have always strongly believed that as a method to support decision-making and the planning of strategic
changes, Enterprise Architecture is the single most suitable tool for managing the Digital Transformation of
Czech public administration and dealing with the above-mentioned challenges.
To establish an Enterprise Architecture competence firmly in our public administration, we have renewed the
Department of the Chief Architect of eGovernment as an executive expert coordinating authority. Previously,
the department had dealt mainly with the design of the basic pillars of eGovernment, the support of the
Digital Champion,10 and the approval of all eGovernment projects co-financed by the European Union. A
new decision was taken to significantly strengthen, extend, and deepen the department’s competencies and
powers. Subsequently, the strengthening of the strategic digital ambitions of the government itself was added
by establishing the Czech Government Commissioner for ICT and Digitization (2017) and, most recently, the
Central Strategic ICT responsibility, which is entrusted to the Deputy Prime Minister for Digitization (2021).
10
An official role in all EU countries at that time; see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Champions.

Preparation
Throughout 2014, after the parliamentary elections in October 2013 and after the establishment of the new
leadership of the Ministry of the Interior, cooperation between the ICT department of the Ministry of the
Interior and the Department of Informatics and Statistics at the University of Economics in Prague deepened.
According to the National Competence Act, the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic is also
responsible for the development, coordination, supervision, and control of local public administrations, as
well as for the development and coordination of ICT in public administration. At the University of
Economics, several expert teams received grants to focus on ICT management and Enterprise Architecture,
among other things.
One of the results of this cooperation and mutual consultation was therefore the renewal and strengthening of
the Department of the Chief Architect of eGovernment and the establishment of its director, the Chief
Architect of eGovernment of the Czech Republic. Initially, however, the Chief Architect did not have the
solid ground needed to establish common rules for the coordination of a national eGovernment, either in a
uniform methodology, or in the legislation in force. Therefore, the first year (2015) was more of a year of
preparation.
Another important step in the cooperation between the Ministry of the Interior and the University of
Economics was the decision of the Deputy Minister of the Interior for ICT to implement the
recommendations of the dissertation: “Concept of Government Enterprise Architecture for Czech Public
Administration” [Hrabe 2014] in the practice of the Chief Architect.
The following four areas of prerequisites for the creation and use of Government Enterprise Architecture
have been continuously evolving from 2015 to the present day. Only selected key milestones are described
here to explain them.
Legislation
A Government Resolution was prepared to introduce the (then) new policy of eGovernment coordination
providing the Chief Architect with the mandate to approve major government ICT projects in accordance
with this policy. It was adopted by the government of the Czech Republic as Government Resolution No.
889/2015 11 on November 2, 2015, effective from January 1, 2016. The feverish two months of final
preparations for this mandate had begun.
After several years, the position of Chief Architect was strengthened and the obligation to control
eGovernment projects was elevated to the status of law. This was done by an amendment to Act 365/2000
Coll.12 on information systems of public administration, approved on September 19, 2016.
11
Refer to: https://www.mvcr.cz/soubor/usneseni-vlady-cr-c-889-ze-dne-2-listopadu-2015.aspx.
12
Refer to: https://www.zakonyprolidi.cz/cs/2000-365.

A year later, this law imposed the obligation to adopt the Information Policy of the Czech Republic, which
defines objectives and architectural principles of the Digital Transformation of Czech public administration,
against which proposed digital government projects are being assessed.
Further reinforcement and legal anchoring of eGovernment strategic direction was brought by Act No.
12/2020 Coll.13 on the right to digital services and on changes to some other Acts (“digital constitution”). As
a follow-up to this act, further Digitization of Public Administration Procedures (DEPO) was most recently
codified by Act. No. 261/202114 (effective from February 1, 2022) to further strengthen the legal basis for the
implementation of this national digital constitution by amending and simplifying more than 150 laws.
Government Resolution No. 86/202015 broadened the scope of public agencies which have to obtain approval
from the Chief Architect when planning their investments in ICT projects.
Following Government Resolution No. 870/2019,16 it became mandatory since January 2020 to ensure
compliance of all new legislation with the “Principles of digital-ready legislation” guidelines, which include
the technology neutrality principle. The Ministry of the Interior acts as a supervisory body to ensure
compliance with the Web Accessibility Directive and the relevant national law.
Institutionalization
To this day, the key institutions and legal authorities of Czech eGovernment consist of two departments at the
Ministry of the Interior: the Department of the Chief Architect and the Department of eGovernment. While
the Chief Architect is mainly the coordinator and guardian of the architectural compliance of central shared
solutions and architectures of all individual agencies with the National Architecture Plan (NAP), the
Department of eGovernment is mainly the administrator of key central eGovernment services.
Effective from February 2018, the government established the role of the Czech Government Commissioner
for ICT and Digitization, who simultaneously held the position of director of two key state-owned ICT
agencies; one established at the Ministry of Finance and the other at the Ministry of the Interior. This allowed
him to coordinate digitization activities more effectively than had been done in the past, at least in key central
government departments.
In 2019, in the context of the “Digital Czechia” government program, all central government authorities
nominated their sectoral Digital Commissioner to assist the Government Commissioner for ICT and
Digitization in executing the plans to implement the program.
State-owned ICT agencies are gradually building a Competence Center, so far containing single digit
numbers of internal consultants. The Competence Center is currently focused mainly on supporting the
creation of information policies of individual agencies and does not cover (in terms of knowledge and
13
14
15
Refer to: https://apps.odok.cz/attachment/-/down/RCIABLBBAKBR.
16
Refer to: https://apps.odok.cz/attachment/-/down/RCIABJWLWYAH.

capacity) many competencies; e.g., those necessary for Digital Transformation and the design of digital
services.
After the autumn 2021 elections, the position of the first Deputy Prime Minister for Digitization was
established by the new government and the consolidation of eGovernment coordination functions into their
office was being prepared.
Strategy
The Information Policy of the Czech Republic17 is part of the “Digital Czechia” program, adopted by the
Czech Government on October 2, 2018. This document provides a framework and principles for acquisition,
design, governance, and operation of public IT systems. The same ideas, goals, and principles were later
reused in many following strategies, including the “National Economic Strategy 2020 – 2030” [Kárníková
2017], the “Innovation Strategy of the Czech Republic – The Country for the Future” [Havlíček 2019] and
the “Client-Oriented Public Administration Strategy 2030” [Sláma 2020].
The Information Policy itself is a five-year rolling plan, continuously updated and extended in June 2020 for
the first time, with another minor update being prepared for summer 2022.
From the point of view of the Czech Government Enterprise Architecture, the Information Policy is
important primarily because its objectives show what eGovernment and individual transformed organizations
should look like; i.e., it shows what is right and desirable. A total of 50 sub-objectives have currently been set
in the following six areas:
1. User-friendly and efficient digital services for citizens and legal entities
2. Digitally friendly legislation
3. Creating an environment conducive to the use of digital technologies in the field of eGovernment
4. Increasing the capacity and competencies of public administration employees
5. Efficient and centrally coordinated public administration ICT
6. Effective and flexible digital public agency
In addition, the objectives are supported by two sets of 17 principles each:
• Architectural principles
• Principles of long-term ICT management
The legal obligation according to which each public administration agency must reflect the objectives and
principles of the Information Policy of the Czech Republic in its local Information Policy is important.
Simultaneously, it is important that individual ICT projects are assessed in terms of compliance with the
17
Refer to: https://www.digitalnicesko.cz/informacni-koncepce-cr/.

national and local Information Policy. Therefore, digital projects are centrally coordinated, the subsidiarity
principle is met, and space is left for meeting local digitization needs.
Methodology
For the development of all abilities and skills of public administration, including the development of digital
public services, it is necessary to manage public administration as an interconnected complex system of
services provided by public administration bodies, with a sense of perspective and overall context.18 As in the
case of business corporations, most of the transformation steps of the state are currently made possible only
with the help of ICT. The overall architecture of public administration bodies, with their agencies and public
corporations, serves as a means of developing and managing transformational changes and, at the same time,
as a means of long-term management and development of ICT supporting these changes.
Instead of managing the individual activities of agencies and their information systems separately, it was
necessary to introduce a new approach that would allow responsible managers, with the help of analysts, to
see the office as a coherent socio-economic-technical system that has a structure of elements, their links, and
behavior (architecture), and in which all things are interrelated.
That is why the NAF was created and published as a methodological and intellectual framework for unified
and coordinated description of the National Architecture of the Czech public administration. The NAF
contains guidelines, procedures, templates, and patterns for the creation, maintenance, and use of the
architecture description.
The NAF is based on internationally recognized standards of government Enterprise Architecture creation
and maintenance, the TOGAF® [C220 2022] and ArchiMate® Standards [C197 2019], administered by The
Open Group and used as a pivotal point for public administration architecture in most countries.
The long-term goal of published methodology was to teach managers and architects of public agencies to
design and build unified and efficient ICT solutions. The short-term goal was to adopt a unified language and
a unified way of systematic and client-oriented thinking, which Enterprise Architecture represents.
Beside the TOGAF Standard content and rules, some proprietary methodological concepts were created
specifically for the Czech Government Enterprise Architecture, as described in the following sections.
Dimensions of Architecture Description
When making decisions based on architecture, it is important that both modeling architects and managers
know which part of the architecture they have in front of them, and for what purpose. That is why we divide
architectural artifacts into domains based on the area of interest, into layers based on the level of detail and
purpose, and into categories based on the degree of generality and sharing.
18
Refer to: https://archi.gov.cz/nar_dokument:uvod - fn__3.

Figure 8: Domain Metamodel of Czech Government Enterprise Architecture
Domain Model
The combination of the proprietary model of core building blocks of government organization as shown in
Figure 8 with the TOGAF architecture layers (Business, Data, Application, and Technology) results in the
design of architectural domains in the NAF. The horizontal (main, key) domains of architecture contain all
basic elements of the existence of an organization; i.e., its operation and its resources (still focused mainly on
IT resources). That is, concepts that provide an answer to the question: “What makes or should make up our
organization?”. Vertical domains of motivational architecture complement and intersect horizontal
architectures and provide answers to the question: “Why is our organization the way it is?”, or rather: “Why
should it be different than it is now?”. The domain of Implementation and Migration then allows you to
model the answers to the question: “What do we need to do to reach the target state?”.
The horizontal domains of Czech Government Enterprise Architecture correspond with the TOGAF and
ArchiMate Standards, including colors, but splitting the technology layer. Besides the already promoted
domains of Performance and Security, Czech Government Enterprise Architecture also introduces domains of
Compliance and Sustainability and Strategy, corresponding with FEA v2 a GEA-NZ 3.2.19 The vertical
domain colors are adopted from the GEA-NZ 3.2 reference taxonomies model [Deleu 2014].
Architecture Pyramid of the Enterprise
The design of a hierarchical classification of architecture types based on purpose and level of detail (shown in
Figure 9) responds to the need for Government Enterprise Architecture coordination; namely:
19
Refer to: https://www.digital.govt.nz/standards-and-guidance/technology-and-architecture/government-enterprise-architecture/gea-nz-framework/.

• Constantly reminding architects and agencies that the overall (holistic) view should be prioritized over their
organization knowledge
• Teaching architects to always consciously stay at a specified level of detail (for example, Enterprise
Architecture) and not to slip into greater detail, where many feel comfortable but they do not have the
assignment, time, or resources to cover it properly at the given stage
Figure 9: Architecture Pyramid of the Enterprise (by Detail and Purpose) [Source: Pavel Hrabě 2011]
Architecture Content Categories
The basis of Czech Government Enterprise Architecture modeling is on individual models of individual
agencies. However, two other types of models are very important. Reference models are used to simplify
modeling for agencies and to unify the language used for agency understanding. Shared models – i.e., models
of shared components of eGovernment and their services – are used as mandatory patterns for models of
individual agencies.
Architecture Reference Taxonomies and Models
The NAF, in line with TOGAF Standard [C220 2022] recommendations, seeks to create and update reference
models for all vertical and horizontal domains of the architecture. In the near future, however, only reference
models for key objects of Business, Data, Application, and Technology Architectures will be available. Two
of these reference models are presented below: a model of behavior taxonomy (functions, processes, or
services) for the Business Architecture layer and a model of application components taxonomy, organized
according to the business purpose of their use for the Application Architecture layer. These should be
followed by reference models for technology layers, Data Architecture, and strategic direction.
All reference models use the same naming terminology for the classification levels:
• 1st level – process (application, technical) area
• 2nd level – process (application, technical) category
• 3rd level – process (application, technical) group

Figure 10: Categories of Architecture Artifacts and Deliverables [Source: Pavel Hrabě 2014]
Business Architecture Reference Model and Taxonomy
The reference model of public administration Business Architecture, focused mainly as a classification
system of activities (functions, processes, and services) of public administration, is gradually created by
Figure 11.
Figure 11: Business Architecture Reference Model and Taxonomy – Level 1
For this reference model, in addition to their own years of experience and theoretical work, the Department of
the Chief Architect and the University of Economics in Prague used models of process and functional

decompositions (reference classification) of municipalities from the Netherlands and the USA, as well as the
reference taxonomy of state administration from New Zealand.
The basic principle of the Business Architecture reference model design is that in the Business Architecture
layer, the focus is on the classification of activities (behavior), regardless of whether they are managed as
functions (from job descriptions), processes (controlled sequences of functions), or services (controlled
outputs of processes).
Furthermore, the Business Architecture reference model focuses on active structures of the model; i.e., actors,
their roles, and service (as well as access and communication) channels used. The reference model represents
a reference (sample) classification or taxonomy of the above elements. At the same time, it provides a visual
reference (diagram topology – what is at the bottom/top, left/right). The reference model recognizes that it is
possible to create multiple reference classification systems. Figure 12 focuses on classifying activities in a
dimension that ranges from providing personalized functions (services) for individual named clients to
common supporting activities.
Figure 12: Business Architecture Reference Model and Taxonomy – Level 2

Application Architecture Reference Model and Taxonomy
So far, the only reference model for the Government Enterprise Architecture Application Architecture is
available for classifying and visualizing the application portfolio map, broken down by application purpose.
It is a reference model developed at the University of Economics in Prague, which, with the exception of the
above-mentioned British model UK Government Reference Architecture, has no parallel in the world.
The desired reference model for the Application Architecture has to meet the following requirements:
• It must group applications by business purpose and ways of user interaction in order to support the decision
about consolidation or replacement of application components in the same classification, or acquisition of an
application component if it is missing for business purposes
• It must make sense at every level of detail (hierarchy) of the application classification, and must be
understandable to business users of the reference model and the individual models derived from it
• It must be, with modifications, usable in all segments and at all levels of the public administration hierarchy
According to the Reference Model Application Architecture, the first level of decomposition divides the
application portfolio along two basic dimensions. The vertical dimension of the model divides Application
Architecture into layers, which represent a classification ranging from technical integration to user interaction
based on the degree of proximity of applications to the user, their needs, and to the management of the
organization,. Figure 13 consists of six layers:
Figure 13: Application Architecture Reference Model and Taxonomy – Level 1: Vertical Dimension
The horizontal dimension in Figure 14 represents a classification of applications based on their role in
supporting the organization’s value chain and in accordance with basic classification of core building blocks
of public administration organization:
• On the far left are applications supporting execution of activities, recording, and communication of
information related to external subjects (Doing Business)

• On the far right are applications supporting the ability to keep records of internal resources and their related
activities (Resource Maintenance)
• In the middle are applications that connect both of these worlds, such as accounting and logistics in Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) in the transaction processing layer (IV), or reporting and decision support in the
analytical layer (III)
The horizontal classification applies to applications with significant business content; i.e., the transactional
and information layers, where it is emphasized, as shown in Figure 14.
(Note: Orange elements were added to comply with the European Interoperability Reference Architecture,
Version 1.0.20)
20
Refer to: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/european-interoperability-reference-architecture-eira/solution/eira/release/v100.

Figure 14: Application Architecture Reference Model and Taxonomy – Levels 2 – 4, Including Horizontal Dimension

Enterprise Architecture Opportunities Identified

The basic Enterprise Architecture opportunity is to support the solution of identified problems in
coordinating the development of digital public administration services using the chosen approach.
It is the strategy of the Czech Republic that digital services provide clients with a friendly user experience
and are cheap, thanks to the fact that they will be unified and make maximum use of central shared
components and functions.
The opportunity is to use Enterprise Architecture as a way of structured thinking; a means of knowing and
understanding each agency and a common language of communication in innovation and Digital
Transformation.
Enterprise Architecture should help us to find and implement missing shared services, transform local
services and solutions to meet the above expectations, and enable the oversight and control of digitization
projects.
During the mandatory process of ICT project approval for public bodies, the Chief Architect of eGovernment
requests/recommends the reuse of existing IT solutions and shared government services. The NAP describes
existing building blocks such as Single Sign-On (SSO) services for public administration employees to
access government IT systems (containing personal data), Electronic Identification (eID) schemes, and other
solutions.
The archi.gov.cz is a central collaborative platform introduced and maintained by the Chief Architect of
eGovernment. Sectoral CIOs work together in the Government Council for Information Society; members of
their teams “meet” in dedicated working groups. Collaborative platforms exist on the regional level,
providing support to local administrations in line with centrally-defined digital strategies. code.gov.cz will be
introduced to serve as a central repository of open-source solutions for public agencies.

Solution Architecture and Implementation Plan

In the time period described, three implementations we want to mention in this study took place
simultaneously. The implementation of:
• The ability of public administration to manage the development of eGovernment services with the help of
Government Enterprise Architecture
• The process of planning, approving, and implementing the eGovernment transformation plan
• New key central services and local eGovernment solutions, especially in the area of digital services and client
service
Putting Government Enterprise Architecture into Practice

The main points of our approach in the field of Enterprise Architecture implementation fully correspond to
the outline of The Open Group Guide: “Digital Government Strategy and Architecture”21 and they are
summarized in this section to match this structure.
Digital Government Strategy
In 2014, in agreement with some newly established senior officials and in cooperation with academics, we
decided at the Ministry of the Interior to develop a strategic and practical “Strategy for the Development of
ICT Services of Public Administration”.22 This strategy was adopted on November 2, 2015 by Government
Resolution No. 889.23
An important factor for our approach at that time was that this strategy was approved together with the
annex: “Basic Principles of the Procedure for Assessing Expenditure Intentions in the Field of Information
and Communications Technologies”,24 which required the Ministry of the Interior to control and approve all
IT projects exceeding a cost of Czech Koruna (CZK) six million.
Only projects that supported the objectives and principles of the adopted Government ICT strategy could
receive a positive assessment result. Agencies that did not receive project approval from the Chief Architect
were not allowed to spend any funds from the state budget on the submitted project. Having control over
funds is a powerful regulatory tool.
Foundations of Enterprise Architecture
Thanks to the presence of experts from the University of Economics in Prague in the team of the Chief
Architect of the Ministry of the Interior, it was quickly decided that the essence of the project approval
21
This is an ongoing project by the Work Group.
22
Refer to: https://apps.odok.cz/attachment/-/down/IHOAA3ZAPCIQ.
23
Refer to: https://www.mvcr.cz/soubor/usneseni-vlady-cr-c-889-ze-dne-2-listopadu-2015.aspx.
24
Refer to: https://apps.odok.cz/attachment/-/down/IHOAA3ZAPELT.

process is, in fact, the inspection of two aspects: the initial architecture of the proposed digital solution at the
Enterprise Architecture25 level of detail, and their project readiness. To describe the architecture of the
project, a combination of The Open Group international standards was chosen: the TOGAF Standard and the
ArchiMate Specification.
The basics of the TOGAF and ArchiMate Standards, applied in project assessment requests, were elaborated
in the following years to form the NAF, which represents original standards complemented by results of local
academic research and knowledge from the practice of public administration in the Czech Republic.
Enterprise Architecture as a Management Practice
Following the success of its application in project assessment requests, Enterprise Architecture became the
guiding approach of the Chief Architect activities for thinking and communication. This eventually led to the
intention to issue and maintain the NAP. It has increasingly become a model for the overall Baseline and
Target Architecture of the Czech public administration, with an emphasis on shared eGovernment services
and their use (eGovernment urban plan), as well as a plan of steps for the development of eGovernment
(roadmap), and a starting point for the management of similar local plans in individual ministries and
organizations.
Agencies have been legally obliged to create such plans, called the “Information Policy”, since 2000 but so
far they have not used elements of holistic systemic thinking and have not planned development projects of
individual information systems in mutual context; the architectural approach was missing.
After the amendment to Act No. 365/2000 Coll.26 on information systems in public administration, the
Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic was given a new obligation from July 1, 2017 to prepare the
overall Information Policy and submit it for approval by the Government. The Department of the Chief
Architect joined forces with the Czech Government Commissioner for ICT and Digitization and produced the
“Information Policy of the Czech Republic”. This was a strategy for the Digital Transformation of the public
administration of the Czech Republic and an integral part of the Government’s overall digitization strategy:
“Digital Czechia”.
The Information Policy of the Czech Republic was compiled as a combination of transformation goals,
prerequisites, and architectural principles. Among other things, it imposed the obligation to implement
Enterprise Architecture in public agencies as a method for managing service development and informatics.
This amendment also introduced a new obligation for authorities to have their local Information Policies fully
in line with the Information Policy of the Czech Republic. It so happened that Enterprise Architecture
became by law one of the management methods used in public agencies management, but the question
remained as to how to put it into practice.
Developing Enterprise Architecture
Over the years, architecture has evolved into two working streams: activities of the central authority, and the
gradual modeling of the architecture of individual public agencies.
25
The term “Project Start Architecture” is also used.
26

The central authority for architecture has prepared the NAF, the NAP, and the support for two mandatory
architectural engagements with detailed methodologies, both at the Enterprise Architecture level – namely
the architecture of the entire agency needed for the Information Policy of the given agency, and the
architecture for specific project assessment requests.
Work on these two types of architecture represents the above-mentioned global stream of development of
public administration architecture.
For further development, it is later planned to provide support in the form of architecture patterns at the level
of solution architecture and solution design, especially for the use of shared services.
The intention to implement a central modeling tool and a central repository, shared by both the central
authority and local architects, has failed and will have to be renewed.
Implementing Enterprise Architecture
In order to achieve coordinated planning and to support the governance of successful ICT project
implementation, several tools have been introduced since 2018, such as the registration of projects in the
unified database of the “Digital Czechia” program, their linking to the objectives and principles of the
Information Policy of the Czech Republic, and their linking to the digitization plan in the Catalog of Public
Administration Services. Simultaneously, the prioritization of projects and support for their readiness in
obtaining funds from the state budget and grants was also introduced.
In addition to program and project management tools and financing, the Enterprise Architecture authority has
been approving projects in terms of the architectural correctness of their design since 2016. Newly from
2021, the “final approval” is also carried out; i.e., a cross-check of the documentation submitted for project
approval against actual implementation documentation, an effective means of Enterprise Architecture
governance.
Enabling and Sustaining Enterprise Architecture
The long-term sustainability of using Enterprise Architecture as a management method in public

administration has several prerequisites, some of which we have unfortunately not yet managed to ensure
(more details later in the section “Lessons Learned and Applicability”):
• Legal anchoring of Enterprise Architecture as a mandatory management method and its support in central
coordination and the control authority
• Anchoring Enterprise Architecture in internal regulations of public agencies and in their organizational
structure
• Enough internal qualified employees for the creation, maintenance, and use of Enterprise Architecture outputs
• Extensive and constantly updated training program for continuously fluctuating employees and continuously
evolving knowledge and experience
• Triggering a long-term demand for systems thinking skills and systematic, informed decision-making; i.e.,
triggering a true Digital Transformation

Accelerating Digital Transformation in Government
Enterprise Architecture and Digital Transformation are accelerating and need each other. Knowledge and
understanding of the organization are being transformed; its structure and behavior; i.e., architecture, is a
precondition for making the right decisions and planning its Digital Transformation. Without Government
Enterprise Architecture, the Digital Transformation of Government can never be successful and can hardly be
initiated at all.
Vice versa, Enterprise Architecture as a management method can only be effective if agencies begin to
change and, in doing so, feel the need for its structured complex thinking. The launch of Digital
Transformation will increase demand for Enterprise Architecture and allow its firm anchoring in processes
and structures of public agencies that would otherwise never have happened, and Enterprise Architecture
would remain hidden somewhere deep in IT departments.
Paving the Way Ahead
For our successful journey into the future, there is no longer the need to add anything special. It is enough if
we can implement things that we know about and that we have not been able to implement so far. See “Risks
and Mitigation Strategies” and “Lessons Learned and Applicability”.
Management of ICT Project Planning, Approval, and Realization Process

In addition to the maintenance and management of public administration architecture and its implementation
into the deployment of new shared services, there is a whole process flow concerning the ICT project from its
initiation in the form of an idea to the end-of-life of its deliverables.
Figure 15: Lifecycle of ICT Change Request and Project
The methodology elaborated behind this flow defines not only the processes but the necessary roles in public
administration, central and local registers, and mapping to legislation or strategic materials. The conceptual

model of the Interoperability Maturity Assessment of a Public Service (IMAPS27) project of the European
Commission has been taken into account when assessing digital government projects.
Deployment of New Shared eGovernment Services

The history of building eGovernment in the Czech Republic has continued since 2016, already supported by
developing Government Enterprise Architecture, mainly with the introduction of other central shared
services.
Externally the most noticeable change was the introduction of a transactional self-service portal under the
name “Citizen’s Portal”, representing a gateway to the service catalog and local transaction portals, which are
innovated both by a growing range of services and also the unified look and feel. Sometimes we also talk
about the fact that public administration portals are being gradually federated; i.e., although the local
responsibility of agencies for their content and operation is preserved, they are unified and interconnected
from the client’s point of view.
As a key prerequisite for self-service, a central point for eID and its international gateway was created on the
basis of Electronic Identification and Trust Services for Electronic Transactions in the Internal Market and
Repealing Directive (eIDAS) regulation.28 Banks were involved in the development of a single eID and
BankID was introduced, derived from common identifications for Home Banking. As a result, approximately
50% of the entire population, a vast majority of productive population (77%), and a majority of all voters
(62%) already have eID – a digital identity.
The current state of eGovernment, highlighting the latest changes, is shown in Figure 16.
27
Refer to: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/imaps-interoperability-maturity-assessment-public-service/about.
28
Refer to: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%3AOJ.L_.2014.257.01.0073.01.ENG.

Figure 16: Current State of Digitization in 2016 – Today: Digital Identity, Digital Self-Service, Access to Data About
Yourself
In the coming years, we expect the Czech eGovernment to develop in several directions. On the one hand, we
urgently need to boost capacities and competencies for the complex management of content, knowledge, and
competencies of central Government employees to serve clients in solving their life events across public
administration sectors. This also includes a multi-channel contact center occasionally providing on-request
assistance and care to clients of self-service online services. These contact centers should also be federated
similarly to portals, and function as an integrated combination of a central entry point and specialized contact
points of particular sectors.
On the other hand, we plan to add several more central shared services in the field of eID of legal entities; in
particular, a solution to support the use of digital services by proxy, briefly denoted as a “mandate register”.
We will also strengthen the unified eID of public administration officials, which is a prerequisite for SSO and
a unified internal “Official’s Portal”, with an increasing number of shared services available for public
administration employees.
We will also intensify the pressure on agencies to share data already known to the state when serving clients
and handling their cases, to use already created solutions and to practically fulfill the vision of an

interconnected data pool and public data pool. An interconnected data pool is focused on non-public data of
agencies and base registries, while a public data pool is focused on public data in the form of open data. We
encourage agencies to identify all data across their office and classify them as either public or non-public.
Subsequently, agencies are obliged to publish data based on their classification through an interconnected
data pool or a public data pool to make them accessible across public administration, as well as for subjects
of data.
Figure 17: Digitization Plans for the Near Future

Risks and Mitigation Strategies

The risks of Enterprise Architecture implementation in public administration threaten both the ability of
agencies to describe, plan, and keep their knowledge up-to-date, and the ability to consume the outputs of
architectural work and implement proposed transformational changes of offices and proposed changes in
services to public administration clients. In this, there are significant differences between the application of
Enterprise Architecture in traditionally highly conservative and rigid public administrations, such as those in
Central Europe, compared to most business industries. The following risks were recognized in the Czech
Republic, as described in our strategic documents, and we constantly strive to mitigate them by adequate
measures.
Lack of Will and Motivation
The risk of insufficient politics and legislation manifests itself in two ways. On the one hand, officials take no
actions other than those prescribed by law, which is a traditional, albeit skewed, interpretation. On the other
hand, there is a lack of politicians and senior officials in public agencies who would be willing to take on the
role of digital leaders and offer a clear and actionable vision of how their public administration agencies
should change.
That is why there is a need to raise awareness among political leaders about what transformation entails, what
can be achieved, and what needs to be done and how. They need to do it in such a way that they can offer it
to voters in their party and Government strategies. This has been achieved in the Czech Republic in the last
two parliamentary terms.
A solid understanding of conditions and procedures of Digital Transformation needs to be incorporated into
laws and regulations so that officials have no doubt about what is right and what is expected of them. Here,
the basic regulations are ready, but there is still room for improvement.
Lack of Knowledge
The risk in developing eGovernment and Digital Transformation is a lack of knowledge and experience, as
most people do something like this for the first time. It is therefore necessary to combine several measures,
the common basis of which is knowledge transfer. In particular:
• Transfer of knowledge from international standards (such as the TOGAF and ArchiMate Standards) to local
methodologies
• Transfer of best practices from similar commercial sectors (banking, telecommunications, and others) to
public administration
• Distribution of knowledge from the authoritative center to the particular agencies that use it
• Involvement in the international exchange of experience between public administrations, to which this
document contributes
In the Czech Republic, we have succeeded in leveraging knowledge and experience in relation to the first two
bullet points, but we still have big gaps in the distribution, continuous maintenance, and renewal of
knowledge in agencies in relation to the third bullet point. Particularly, we currently lack a unified
curriculum, accessible course content, eLearning tools, and enough qualified lecturers.

Lack of Staff
The whole transformation can be stopped by the fact that there are no employees in public agencies who
understand the transformation procedures, have a vision of the target state, have the willingness to take the
risks of change, or the ability to become “agents of change”. There is also usually a lack of people who are
experts in their field of public administration services, have the ability to propose a target state for their
subject area, and can be released from their daily routine to implement the proposed changes.
For any transformation, it is inevitable to choose the “invest in savings” approach. Thus, first of all, it is
necessary to significantly increase expenditures especially on employees and IT in the short term, so that
after the change implementation efficiency can be increased and personnel and material costs can be reduced.
However, this approach is difficult to explain to politicians and officials, and even more difficult to
implement.
In the Czech Republic, increasing the number of officials (albeit temporary) and increasing the salaries of
experts (albeit only selectively) are very politically unpopular topics. This is one of the reasons why we have
not yet been able to manage the personnel aspect of Digital Transformation, which is why our other results
are worse than they could be. On the other hand, we know clearly where our potential for improvement lies.
Insufficient Budgets
Another risk of transformation is that there will not be enough funds in the budgets to cover transformation
costs. A typical situation of the Czech Republic is that it uses European Union funding for ICT and
transformation projects. However, their use is very irregular, limited to certain subjects, and administratively
complicated.
A big risk is the underestimation of the mandatory eGovernment expenditures. In the transformed public
administration, the interdependency of public services and their IT support will grow to such an extent that
technological failures will completely prevent the execution of public administration. In this case, the
expenses necessary to keep IT technologies in operation (including personnel and knowledge costs) and the
costs of their continuous replacement and organic growth (increase in the volume of data) need to be
considered mandatory; i.e., legally given, similarly to the cost of pensions or health care. Alternatively, they
can be set aside as a separate budget plan in order to make them more transparent.
Insufficient Enforceability of Regulatory Measures
The knowledge and capabilities of the central coordinating authority of eGovernment and Digital
Transformation will be of no use if it is not equipped with sufficient powers and sufficiently effective tools to
control and enforce good practice.
Therefore, each country should have a central authority for the architecture of state digitization and for the
management of digitization programs established by law, so that it is sufficiently equipped with human
resources and budgets, based on comprehensible legislation and control mechanisms, and typically associated
with funding from the European Union and/or a state budget.
Insufficient ICT Infrastructure
The risk of eGovernment is also hidden in its own success, or the frequent fact that many ICT solutions (their
computing power and storage space, secure connection points, networks, etc.), initially designed as a pilot,
cease to be sufficient very quickly if digital services succeed.

Solutions must therefore be designed as scalable in all their aspects, their front-end parts (such as portals)
best located in the cloud, and public investors must be ready to extend them continuously.
Insufficient Ability of Clients to Use Digital Services
There will always be target groups of clients in the population who will not be able or willing to use digital
services in the currently presented universal form.
This means there is a need to:
• Keep in mind that services must be designed as internally digital, but there must also be a traditional, face-to-
face or paper-based form of assisted service
• Segment clients according to their habits and abilities to use digital services and offer them several user
modifications, in multiple service channels
• Constantly educate clients both directly and indirectly, with the help of partners and the education system
Insufficient Promotion of Already Available Services
It cannot be assumed that potential public administration clients will find suitable services for solving their
life situations easily by themselves when they need them. Public services do not sell themselves; it is
necessary to constantly help them with very well targeted communication and promotional campaigns.

Lessons Learned and Applicability

The experience presented in this document is applicable to any country or even large commercial
corporations. For a real introduction of Enterprise Architecture as a management method into the practice of
eGovernment and Digital Transformation, it is important to:
• Have expert knowledge of what such an implementation means
• Have the legal and financial tools to enforce your vision
• Have a clear idea of basic principles and key building blocks for shared eGovernment services from the very
beginning
• Invest sufficiently in people, in the central authority as well as in individual offices
Our experience shows that for success it is essential that all four of the above conditions are met at the same
time, otherwise results do not come as quickly and in the expected scale.
While the Czech Republic succeeded in the first three points during the described years of 2014 – 2021, the
fourth condition was not sufficiently met. Evidence of this was presented above; see: “Risks and Mitigation
Strategies”.
In particular, we have failed to invest in people. The digital reform strategy was well prepared, but in fact the
Government did not take it seriously enough and expected the changes to happen by themselves. Once again,
we find ourselves shortly after elections and the new Government clearly declares its willingness and plan to
invest primarily in transformational employees, then optimize services, and only then gain savings, including
a reduction in the number of officials. But the first task of the new Government is to start reducing the budget
deficit immediately, as early as 2022. So, it is still not going to be easy to invest in Digital Transformation.
Furthermore, we have not managed to invest in the building and transfer of knowledge, which is closely
related to the lack of experts. While all outputs and accelerators of the National Architecture are immediately
published, so far there has not been enough power to create a system of education about architecture and the
eGovernment so that the necessary knowledge can be delivered wherever it is needed.
We have achieved considerable success thanks to the fact that since 2015 the role of the Department of the
Chief Architect of the Ministry of the Interior as an institution and as the National Architecture authority has
been expanding. Initially, its activities were based only on a resolution of the Czech Government, but it
gradually gained greater importance and stability thanks to the existence of a legal mandate to coordinate
Digital Transformation projects and to support the delivery of central eGovernment services.
The architectural content and methodology was created thanks to the established cooperation of the Ministry
of the Interior with the University of Economics in Prague, the Department of Information Technology, and
thanks to the pronounced promotion of digital services towards clients, based on the essential central pillars
of eGovernment, such as Base Registries, Data Boxes, Public Administration Portal, and recently unified eID
of clients.
Cooperation with the private sector, especially with ICT vendor associations as well as with a growing
community of ICT volunteers, has also been developing recently.

Defining the Target Architecture of the transformed public administration of the Czech Republic and its
gradual implementation in public agencies was and continues to be possible only thanks to the adoption and
repeated updates of the digital strategy, which is specific and comprehensive at the same time.

References
(Please note that the links below are good at the time of writing but cannot be guaranteed for the future.)
[C197, 2019] ArchiMate® 3.1 Specification, a standard of The Open Group (C197), November 2019,
published by The Open Group; refer to: www.opengroup.org/library/c197
[C220, 2022] The TOGAF® Standard, 10th Edition, a standard of The Open Group (C220), April 2022,
published by The Open Group; refer to: http://www.opengroup.org/library/c220
[Deleu, 2014] Enterprise Architecture in Government Transformation, June 2014, Deleu, R., Auckland:
New Zealand Government. Načteno, z; refer to:
https://snapshot.ict.govt.nz/resources/digital-ict-
archive/static/localhost_8000/assets/Guidance-and-Resources/Enterprise-Architecture-in-
Government-Transformation-June-2014.pdf
[Gála, et al., 2012] Podniková Architektura, 2012, Gála, L., Buchalcevová, A., and Jandoš, J., edited by
Tomáš Bruckner; refer to:
https://books.google.cz/books?id=qvB0jTwKGrIC&pg=PA3&hl=cs&source=gbs_select
ed_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false
[Havlíček, 2019] Innovation Strategy of the Czech Republic – The Country for the Future, 2019, Havlíček,
K., published by Council for Research, Development and Innovation; refer to:
https://www.vyzkum.cz/FrontClanek.aspx?idsekce=867922&ad=1&attid=867987
[Hrabě, et al., 2011] The Application Architecture Reference Model Blueprint, 2011, Hrabě, P., and
Buchalcevová, A., Systémová integrace, 18(1), pp. 84-92. Načteno z; refer to:
http://www.cssi.cz/cssi/application-architecture-reference-model-blueprint
[Hrabě, 2014] Koncepce Podnikové Architektury Pro Reformu Veřejné správy ČR, 2014, Hrabě, P.,
Praha: VŠE v Praze; refer to:
https://www.academia.edu/12674373/Koncepce_podnikov%C3%A9_architektury_pro_r
eformu_ve%C5%99ejn%C3%A9_spr%C3%A1vy_%C4%8CR
[Kárníková, 2017] National Economic Strategy 2020-2030, 2017, edited by Anna Kárníková, published by
the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic, Department of Sustainable
Development; refer to: https://www.vlada.cz/assets/ppov/udrzitelny-rozvoj/projekt-
OPZ/Strategic_Framework_CZ2030.pdf
[Ministry of the Interior, 2007]

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) Administration
Strategy for 2007 – 2015, 2007, Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic; refer to:
https://www.databaze-strategie.cz/cz/mv/strategie/strategie-realizace-smart-
administration-2007-2015
[Sláma, 2020] Client-Oriented Public Administration Strategy 2030, 2020, edited by David Sláma,
published by the Ministry of the Interior; refer to: https://www.mvcr.cz/soubor/client-
oriented-public-administration-2030.aspx

Acronyms & Abbreviations

APS Logistics Optimization
CIO Chief Information Officer
COLL. Collection
CRM Constituents Relationship Management
DEPO Digitization of Public Administration Procedures
eGovernment Electronic Government
eID Electronic Identification
eIDAS Electronic Identification and Trust Services for Electronic Transactions in the Internal
Market and Repealing Directive
ERP Enterprise Resource Planning
ESF European Social Funds
GCIS Government Council for the Information Society
GRC Governance, Risk, and Compliance
ICDP Interconnected Data Pool
ICT Information and Communications Technology
IMAPS Inoperability Maturity Assessment of a Public Service
IT Information Technology
NAF National Architecture Framework
NAP National Architecture Plan
NO. Number
PDP Public Data Pool
POINT Czech Filing Verification Information National Terminal
RIA Regulatory Impact Assessment
ROB Registry of Natural Persons
ROS Registry of Economic Entities
RPP Registry of Rights and Duties
RUIAN Registry of Territorial Identification, Addresses, and Real Estates

SMART Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant and Time-bound
SRM Supplier Relation Management
SSO Single Sign-On
UX User Experience
UI User Interface

About the Authors

Ing. Pavel Hrabě, PhD
Ing. Pavel Hrabě, PhD, NAKIT/Ministry of Interior of Czech Republic & University of Economics, Prague
(VSE), completed studies of Technical Cybernetics at the ČVUT FEL Prague in 1989. After graduation he
began working as an IT analyst in the University Hospital in Prague Motol. He was the branch manager in
one Czech retail bank and sales/marketing manager in various companies. Since 1995 Pavel has worked at
SAP ČR as a consultant, and later as a solution architect and management consultant for key customers.
Since 2007, Pavel has specialized in advising on IT strategy and Enterprise Architecture. In 2009, he started
his doctoral studies on Enterprise Architecture at the University of Economics, Prague, completed in 2015,
and continued to teach Enterprise Architecture there. In 2015, he started also to work as an external advisor
of the Czech Ministry of Interior, in the role of chief methodologist of the National Architecture of Czech
Public Administration (Czech GEA). He is co-author of the Digital Czech strategy.
Ing. Tomáš Šedivec
Ing. Tomáš Šedivec, Ministry of Interior of Czech Republic, graduated in applied informatics at the
University of Economics in Prague. Since 2015 he has been working at the Ministry of Interior, Department
of the Chief Architect of eGovernment, where he is responsible for the maintenance of the National
eGovernment architecture, publicly available at https://archi.gov.cz. He is ArchiMate® 3 Certified.
Ing. Libor Drlík
Ing. Libor Drlík, NAKIT, completed studies of Information Management at the University of Economics in
Prague (VSE). He gained professional experience working as a business analyst for a major Czech IT vendor
and consulting company. He then spent more than a decade in the banking sector, focusing mainly on process
management, business, and solution architecture. In 2021, he decided to join the Czech public administration
as a part of its Enterprise Architecture competence center.

Acknowledgements
The Open Group gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the following people in the development of this
document (please note that affiliations were current at the time of approval):
• Hani Eskandar, International Telecommunication Union
• Vikash Madduri, International Telecommunication Union
• Leos Mates, DAIN sro
• Dr. Robert Weisman, Build the Vision, Inc.
• Sonia Gonzalez, The Open Group
• Dr. Pallab Saha, The Open Group
The Open Group also sincerely thanks all members of the Government Enterprise Architecture Work Group
involved in the discussions and deliberations during the development of this document. Such interactions are
a critical part of the functioning of the Work Group, significantly contributing to the quality of this document.

About The Open Group

The Open Group is a global consortium that enables the achievement of business objectives through
technology standards. With more than 870 member organizations, we have a diverse membership that spans
all sectors of the technology community – customers, systems and solutions suppliers, tool vendors,
integrators and consultants, as well as academics and researchers.
The mission of The Open Group is to drive the creation of Boundaryless Information Flow™ achieved by:
• Working with customers to capture, understand, and address current and emerging requirements, establish
policies, and share best practices
• Working with suppliers, consortia, and standards bodies to develop consensus and facilitate interoperability,
to evolve and integrate specifications and open source technologies
• Offering a comprehensive set of services to enhance the operational efficiency of consortia
• Developing and operating the industry’s premier certification service and encouraging procurement of
certified products
Further information on The Open Group is available at www.opengroup.org.

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Czech Government

Pavel Hrabe, Chief Methodologist of National eGovernment

This is a Joint Publication of The Open Group and the

Czech Government Enterprise Architecture

Published by The Open Group, October 2022.

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Problem Statement .................................................................. 14

Approaches Considered and Selected ....................................... 15

Enterprise Architecture Opportunities Identified ..................... 27

Risks and Mitigation Strategies ................................................ 35

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Boundaryless Information Flow™

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Czech eGovernment History

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• In 2010, launch base registries

• In 2015, complete the process of information-based digitization, including digitization of geographic

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• Registry of Natural Persons (ROB)

• Registry of Economic Entities (ROS)

• Registry of Territorial Identification, Addresses, and Real Estates (RUIAN)

• Registry of Rights and Duties (RPP)

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Core Building Blocks of eGovernment

Key Building Blocks of Government Organization

Figure 5: Key Building Blocks of Every Czech Government Organization – Level 1

This view allows us to distinguish:

• What the organization does for its surroundings

• What resources it has

This can be seen in more detail in Figure 6.

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Czech eGovernment Building Blocks

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Figure 7: Building Blocks of Czech eGovernment in Architecture Domains – Level 3

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Capability to Efficiently Manage Government ICT

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Approaches Considered and Selected

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2. Digitally friendly legislation

4. Increasing the capacity and competencies of public administration employees

5. Efficient and centrally coordinated public administration ICT

6. Effective and flexible digital public agency

In addition, the objectives are supported by two sets of 17 principles each:

• Principles of long-term ICT management

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Dimensions of Architecture Description

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Figure 8: Domain Metamodel of Czech Government Enterprise Architecture

Architecture Pyramid of the Enterprise

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Architecture Content Categories

Architecture Reference Taxonomies and Models

• 1st level – process (application, technical) area

• 2nd level – process (application, technical) category

• 3rd level – process (application, technical) group

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Business Architecture Reference Model and Taxonomy