It would only count as an oxymoron if the word "enterprise" was fundamentally incompatible with the word "architecture". There are many possible criticisms of enterprise architecture, and I've articulated some of them myself, but "oxymoron" isn't a valid one.
If you go to Wikipedia: Figure of Speech, as I did, you will find a long list of better words. I had never heard most of them, but I picked out a few that looked as if they might apply to "Enterprise Architecture", including Auxesis (a form of hyperbole, in which a more important sounding word is used in place of a more descriptive term) and Metalepsis (referring to something through reference to another thing to which it is remotely related).
Do words matter? Many enterprise architects think it matters whether we use the right concepts; many non-architects think this idea is pedantic time-wasting. You choose.
Meanwhile, a more serious criticism of EA has been published on the British Computer Society (BCS) website. Enterprise architecture - dogmatic and over-ambitious? by Peter Kemp and Dr John McManus, January 2009. They identify the following characteristic problems.
| Technology-led | standardisation of applications, systems and technologies used as driver for enforced business change |
| Dogmatic | nominal standardisation at an enterprise level is seen as a more important goal than meeting end users' real requirements |
| Over-ambitious | few EA strategies seem to be able to stop short of a idealised, perfect scenario |
| Unverified | no one has properly analysed the achievability or sustainability of the proposed EA |
| Divorced from the current state | although the current state is usually shown, there is no analysis of how the first steps can be taken from the current to the idealised future state |
| Futuristic | the EA strategy plans so far in advance that it doesn't sensibly guide the immediate next IT strategy steps |
| Politicised | things are reduced to sound-bites and perceptions and not judged on hard analysis of benefits and weaknesses |
Brian Burke (Gartner) "Are there problems with some EA programs? Of course, but that doesn’t mean that EA should be abandoned and we should retreat to the failed practices of the past."
Mike Rosen (Cutter) "Don’t give up on the idea of EA, even if your past experience has been painful."
As Sally Bean comments though, some more concrete examples or stats would have been nice. For my part, I am generally suspicious of the idea that if something isn't working, the answer is to do more.
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