Outlines are part of the [[CSVLOD]] model, representing **business-focused changes**. They're made at the start of Initiative Delivery. They help direct how specific IT initiatives should be implemented from the business perspective. They are sort of like what you'd find in a business proposal or an RFQ. > [!question] Questions > - What business needs are fulfilled by the proposed initiative? > - What solution will be implemented by the initiative? > - What is the overall organizational impact of the initiative? Outlines are a mix of textual and graphical, typically build in Word. They're somewhat short-lived in terms of the value the provide, helping the business decided on, articulate, and communicate its needs & requirements for a given IT Initiative. # Concerns Like many other [[Enterprise Architecture Artifacts]], as presented the biggest concern with the use of Outlines is the tendency to make them too detailed. [[Svyatoslav Kotusev]] says: > Outlines should provide sufficient information to decide whether an organization will benefit if the indicative is implemented # Types ## Solution Overviews Commonality: **Essential** Solution Overviews have many names, they are finalized descriptions of proposed solutions. They often include "as-is" and "to-be" states. They would typically list facts about the IT Initiative - goals, expected benefits, stakeholders, assumptions, risks, estimates, etc. Solution Overviews are considerably **longer** than [[EA Considerations]], [[EA Standards]], [[EA Visions]], and [[EA Landscapes]] - upwards of 15 to 30 pages are common. They sometimes utilize [[BPMN]]. > [!note] Example > ![[Pasted image 20240603175235.png]] ## Options Assessments Commonality: Common Options Assessments are what they seem to be - a quick depiction of different options for a given course of action. Including costs/expected benefits. These could also be presented as [[Decision Matrix]]es, with formal scoring mechanisms. > [!note] Example > ![[Pasted image 20240603175835.png]] ## Initiative Proposals Commonality: Uncommon These are basically just Solution Overviews for prospective solutions. They are less long and less detailed. ## Others - **Key Decisions** - documentation regarding a particular decision that was made explaining/justifying why a course of action was taken, particularly one that breaks with [[EA Considerations#Principles]]. - **One-Page Initiative Overviews** - initiative-describing one-pagers. **** ## Source ## Related - [[Diagram Types (index)]]