Lambert said pushing for short-term results on enterprise architecture projects is pointless.

"Managers often strive for benefits within two to three years, because of the design of ongoing performance-based managerial contracts, but for most organizations it takes between five and six years to actually reap real benefits; and often these projects can take twice as long as that," he said.

Lambert described enterprise architecture as a complex set of ideas, so it isn't easily understood by business.

"As a result management fails to buy-in to these projects, which end up doomed," he said.

"Early on, the project tends to have a technical focus, but when you start to look at ICT (Information and Communication Technology) holistically you can see the rapid gains in productivity performance or savings, because you can see where you are duplicating resources; this is the way to fuel management support for these projects."