Implementing & Using TOGAF: best practices

Architecture has been around since the mid 1980’s. The most famous standard from that era is probably John Zachman’s framework for enterprise architecture. Many more standards have been proposed since, ranging from the IEEE standard, DYA, DODAF/MODAF, TOGAF, ArchiMate, IAF etc. A good overview (in Dutch) can be found in the book Wegwijzer voor methoden bij enterprise-architectuur.

TOGAF

Architecture approaches focus on different aspects, such as architecture modeling or the process of doing architecture. TOGAF is an architecture framework that has 6 main components:

Some parts of the TOGAF standard are mandatory, whereas others are optional. This makes it possible for organizations to (to some extent) “cherry pick” and tune TOGAF for use in a wide range of organizations.

Overview of the series

This blog post is the first in a series on the Architecture Development Method. The goal of the series is to give a broad overview of the ADM, present best practices for using the ADM and to show how it can be adapted to your own organization. The topics to come are as follows:

·         Preparing the organization for EA (Phase P)

·         Starting an ADM cycle with a vision (Phase A)

·         Figuring out the baseline architecture and target architecture (Phase B,C,D)

·         Finding ways to implement the target architecture (Phase E)

·         Translating opportunities to a well-defined project plan (Phase F)

·         Managing implementation oversight of projects (Phase G)

·         Dealing with change (Phase H)

·         Covering the basics: keep track of requirements (Requirements Management)

This last blog post will also briefly discuss the relation between TOGAF and ArchiMate.

Outlook

If you’d like to know more, please contact the author directly at b.vangils@bizzdesign.nl, or leave a comment.