About the Office of the Chief IT Architect
The Office of the Chief IT Architect (OCITA) is the NIH Enterprise Architecture program management office and is comprised of a fulltime architecture staff as follows:
- Chief IT Architect knowledgeable in most/key enterprise architecture areas
- Architects with focused expertise in current key architectural areas (e.g., integration architectures, modeling, etc.)
- Administrative support.
OCITA's central responsibility is the daily execution and management of the NIH Enterprise Architecture program and associated activities and initiatives. In this capacity, OCITA’s primary responsibilities are to:
- Lead the creation and renewal of architecture and standards
- Lead and facilitate the IT Architecture Domain Team Process
- Manage domain team memberships
- Ensure NIH mission and architecture alignment
- Lead assessments of evolving technologies for standards adoption or renewal
- Plan and recommend architectural migration
- Assess the current environment in specific technical areas
- Publish the architecture in the chosen format
- Conduct awareness/education sessions
- Advise in business and IT planning
- Interpret and communicate architecture issues and choices
- Advise project teams on the use of architecture
- Support projects on assessing adherence when requested
- Evaluate project requests for exceptions to architecture
- Develop recommendations for the Architecture Review Board (ARB) as the basis for decision-making
- Represent NIH architecture to the Department of Health and Human Services
- Provide enterprise architecture reviews in support of the NIH Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) process