We are starting our first Enterprise Architecture practice.  What would those that have EA in place, or have recently launched EA, found to be the most beneficial EA services you provide to help sell EA to the enterprise and gain support?

While the Enterprise Architecture strategy may be great, if we don't have leadership buy-in, focus on EA Governance & a strong Enterprise Architecture Review Board, Digital Transformation initiatives can fall apart. 

Architecture transparency in terms of skills and artefacts, there must be an architecture repository that is classified based on enterprise continuum to map our current state, target state and who and what we have or need to plan out how we get there. I am a believer in TOGAF ADM its tried and tested but should be tailored to different needs not just applied as is. 

Management buy-in is most important to have EA in place under the standard security framework.

Some great suggestions in here for how to best launch a new EA practice, it is likely that some of these suggestions will resonate with you more than others, and that is key.  In my experience, organizational culture is the greatest driver for how EA programs start, survive and thrive.  "Culture eats frameworks for breakfast" is a phrase I have used.  Make sure you spend time decoding the cultural norms of your business and identifying some of the more pressing needs out there, and focus on those, even if they aren't natural or traditional areas of focus for an EA team.  This is because earning a seat at the table is often one of the primary obstacles that an EA team needs to overcome first and foremost.  Earning that seat is a lot easier if the function is seen as helping to solve near and present opportunities and problems. 

In order to execute on your I&T Strategy you need to have a target architecture in place. Both a target operating model and an application architecture. The biggest value I have found with an EA capability is the ability to create this target architecture and not only the technical layer (application/infrastructure/data) but also the business layer. The key is the EA was vital in generating the target architecture for where the business needed to get to in order to be successful. This was their mission. This ensured the EA didn't get carried away with lots and lots of EA for EA sake. Their purpose was clear - understand our end state so that we can look at gap between here and there and agree on a roadmap of initiatives. It's worth also noting that the EA needs to be agile. They need to be innovative and understand the changing landscape both from an opportunity point of view (business context) and art of the possible point of view (technical advances and new platforms).