John H Ayre describes the EA Big Picture with the following... picture that lists, err... the nine different big pictures that Enterprise Architecture should consist of:

In my opinion the best insight can be found in the discussion on where to start building the big picture:

But that is a lot of pictures to consider, and we have to start somewhere. The majority of “traditional” organisations start in the centre by developing the Solution model. This task often falls to IT alone, acting on a variety of unaligned instructions from many interested parties. In my opinion, this is where many of the problems associated with “Big IT” originate.

It is far better to treat the EA Grid as a jigsaw. Start with the corners, then fill in the edges, and finally complete the centre. The corners allow us to better understand how the edges fit, and the edges give us a better understanding of how the middle needs to look. However, as for a jigsaw, if you find a piece that you know fits an area you are not yet working on, don’t just ignore it; put it where you think it belongs.

It is also best to start with the top left corner (the Services model) in keeping with the service oriented approaches that many architects adopt, and then work left to right and top to bottom (still focusing on the corners first and foremost).

Read more in The Enterprising Architect blog.