Enterprise architecture (EA) is the practices of planning, designing, and managing the structure and operation of an enterprise's IT systems and processes. EA helps to ensure that the IT investments support the business goals and objectives, and that the IT architecture is coherent, consistent, and adaptable to changing needs and demands.
One of the most widely used frameworks for EA is The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), which provides a comprehensive and standardized approach to developing, managing, and evolving EA. TOGAF consists of four domains: business, data, application, and technology (commonly known as BDAT), and defines a set of processes, methods, and tools for each domain.
A key deliverable of TOGAF is the EA roadmap, that is a comprehensive plan that outlines the current state (or as-is state), the desired future state, and the steps required to achieve the vision. The EA roadmap helps to define the value and benefits of EA to the stakeholders, and to align the activities with the business priorities and timelines.
The process starts with the preliminary phase that usually originates from CEO/CTO offices communicating organizational vision (such as 50% workloads be cloud native in next 5 years to reduce Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) by say 100mn (cloud transformation) OR 1/3 of total revenue coming from online platform (digital transformation)). The preliminary phase defines the organizational context (which organizational area/Business Unit(BU) this organizational vision caters to), the architectural principles and the budgetary and resource commitments and the framework and tools to track status/progress. More details about preliminary phase outputs can be found here: https://pubs.opengroup.org/togaf-standard/adm/chap02.html#tag_02_04
Post Preliminary phase the Requirement Management Phase starts, TOGAF recommends Architecture Development Method (ADM) for managing Requirement Management phase. The ADM consists of following phases, each with a specific purpose and output. The phases are:
- Phase A: Architecture Vision - Define the scope, objectives, and stakeholders of the EA, and create a high-level vision and business case for the EA. This phase also involves defining the principles, standards, and guidelines that will guide the EA development and implementation.
- Phase B: Business Architecture - Define the business strategy, processes, functions, and capabilities of the enterprise, and map them to the IT systems and services. This phase also involves analysing the business drivers, goals, and requirements, and assessing the current and target business performance and maturity.
- Phase C: Information Systems Architecture - Define the data and application architecture of the enterprise, and identify the data sources, flows, and entities, and the application components, interfaces, and interactions. This phase also involves modeling the data and application structure, behavior, and quality, and evaluating the current and target information systems performance and maturity.
- Phase D: Technology Architecture - Define the technology infrastructure and platform architecture of the enterprise, and identify the hardware, software, network, and security components and standards. This phase also involves modeling the technology architecture, and evaluating the current and target technology performance and maturity.
- Phase E: Opportunities and Solutions - Identify the gaps, issues, and opportunities between the current and target architectures, and define the projects and initiatives to address them. This phase also involves conducting a feasibility and risk analysis, and estimating the costs and benefits of the EA solutions.
- Phase F: Migration Planning - Prioritize, sequence, and schedule the projects and initiatives, and create a detailed roadmap and transition plan for the EA. This phase also involves identifying the dependencies, resources, and stakeholders for the EA implementation, and defining the transition architectures and scenarios.
- Phase G: Implementation Governance - Define the governance structure, roles, and responsibilities for the EA, and establish the criteria, metrics, and processes for monitoring and controlling the EA implementation. This phase also involves developing the EA contracts and agreements, and ensuring the compliance and quality of the EA solutions.
- Phase H: Architecture Change Management - Define the change management process and procedures for the EA, and manage the changes and updates to the EA in response to the internal and external factors. This phase also involves reviewing and evaluating the EA outcomes and impacts, and identifying the lessons learned and best practices for the EA.
Ref: https://pubs.opengroup.org/togaf-standard/adm/chap13.html (TOGAF 10 Standard)
It is clear from above diagram that each of the phases can be iterative and the team is able to go back (ie from Phase B to back to Phase A) and re-align on objectives based on feedback loop from the subsequent phases. This is a major change from TOGAF 9.x and previous standards where the directional arrows were shown between phases. This updated recommendation provides better and more agile feedback loop between phases.
Overall ADM is not a rigid process, that can be applied at different levels of granularity, scope, and detail, and can be iterated and repeated as necessary. The ADM can also be integrated with other frameworks and methodologies, such as Agile etc to enhance the overall EA value preposition.
Conclusion
In my experience EA provides the roadmap for organizational vision of what needs to be done and how. Hence it is a valuable tool for the enterprise architects who want to align their business and IT strategies, and to deliver the EA value and benefits to the enterprises. By following the TOGAF principles and the ADM process, enterprise architects can create an EA roadmap that is aligned to the overall organizational vision. Hope this information helps to get started and incorporate TOGAF or any other EA tool on your EA journey.
More details about TOGAF 10 standard can be found here:
https://pubs.opengroup.org/togaf-standard/introduction/index.html