Your first week as EA using Atlas

Five days. One hour a day. By Friday you'll have a working picture of the portfolio.

Monday — Applications

Import or manually add the top 20 business-critical applications. Don't worry about completeness. Capture: name, owner, vendor, business area, cost if known.

Tuesday — Capabilities

Open the Capabilities module. Use the industry template that matches your organization closest. Rename and delete as you go. Aim for 30-50 capabilities, no more.

Wednesday — Map applications to capabilities

Drag applications onto capabilities. Atlas suggests mappings; you confirm or override. Expect to finish 15 apps in an hour. Leave the rest for later.

Thursday — Decisions

Create ADR-001: "Adopt Atlas as our EA tool of record." Half a page. This sets the precedent.

Friday — Review

Open the health index and the capability coverage view. Write three observations and share them with your CIO. You now have a baseline.

What not to do in week one

Don't try to model technologies yet. Don't draw diagrams. Don't invite the whole organization. Keep the circle small until you've got the core right.