TOGAF: make it about the people

As the enterprise architecture discipline matures, more and more enterprises adopt open standards such as ArchiMate and TOGAF to deliver value to their enterprises. Indeed, most organizations realize all too well that both standards make some serious assumptions on how we see our enterprise (as a system that (a) has state, and (b) can be decomposed). As long as we - the architecture professionals - keep our eyes on the ball and know what we're doing then we should be ok, though.

In the next few weeks I will post some observations and lessons learned in the form of short articles that may be useful for others. Here's the first one: key to successful architecture projects (with our without TOGAF) is to make it about the people. Just doing "stakeholder management" as TOGAF recommends isn't good enough. Take an interest in the people that make the organization. Know, that the TOGAF framework with all its steps, checklists, guidelines etc. is only there to help you do (part of) your job better! Enterprises are about more than IT or alignment!