digital-roadmap-management

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Zachman in a Nuthsell: Framework and Examples

Working in Enterprise or IT architecture, knowing about the Zachman framework is fundamental. Today´s article provides a summary of the framework, examples, and links to relevant sources. Zachman Framework RelevanceZachman is a metamodel that provides a fundamental structure and classification for your enterprise architecture work. Being a metamodel, it does not describe the process of creating an enterprise architecture. However, when Zachman published his framework in 1987, it was the first widely recognized enterprise architecture framework theory. He, therefore, was the first to propose a method to describe various aspects of IT according to different stakeholder perspectives. This enabled business and IT to use the same description methods, work on joint views, and align their ways of thinking. Zachman also gave a direction for various enterprise architecture frameworks and theories that followed after 1987, such as the TOGAF framework, which was initially released in 1995.Zachman Framework StructureIn the Zachman framework, the content of enterprise architecture is abstracted into the description of six different aspects of IT. When all six perspectives are completed, so believed Zachman, an enterprise architecture would be fully described. In addition to the six aspects of IT, the framework has six additional questions to answer. The result is a 6x6 matrix with 36 cells. Each cell stands for an individual perspective or viewpoint:The aspects of IT are the following: Executive perspective, business management perspective, architect perspective, engineer perspective, technician perspective, and enterprise perspective. The six questions are: What? How? Where? Who? When? Why?Zachman Framework ExampleImagine that you are a business partner of an international manufacturer of decomposable coffee cups. Part of your business model is not only the production, but also involves the required ecosystem, including suppliers, logistic networks, and marketing partnerships. Your company has decided to enter a new market in another country. Your CEO has asked your CIO, has asked you, to provide a comprehensive positioning document from your perspective. What would you do and how could the Zachman framework help you with that? First of all, you would understand that your expertise as a business partner is required, as much as your skills to prepare the documentation for the executive level in a way that they easily understand it. As you know that the audience (not your skills) is the important factor in choosing the right row in the Zachman framework, you decide to look at the roles/audiences / EA perspectives of an executive (first row). Second, you would decide which questions are relevant for you to be answered. As the decision to enter the new market has already been taken, you assume that you do not need to answer "Why" you want to enter the new market. You would also assume that "Where" is irrelevant, as everyone knows which market is in focus. However, after thinking about it, you would decide that all the other questions are quite relevant. Therefore, you would start to prepare material around the following questions: - What needs to be done so that we can enter the new market? What would be the big, major steps? - How would we do that? Will we use central or decentral IT systems? - Who would do that? Would we find local outsourcing partners or bring in our experts? - When could we do that? What timeline do requirements and lead times of our IT landscape suggest?For all those questions, you would make sure that they can be easily understood by your target audience, the executive level.More Examples of the Zachman FrameworkAnother way to look at the Zachman framework is to understand where you would locate document types, artifacts, and materials you already know. As mentioned, the metamodel Zachman is supposed to provide a location for all those different types that exist. Take a look at this article to find out how they match into the framework. Want another Zachman Framework Example? This article provides a Zachman Framework Example of a CRM system being implemented. Read the full article

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How to Use the New TOGAF Version 10

TOGAF 10 was recently released and is now available. We take a step back and take a practitioner’s view of doing Enterprise Architecture work in an organization. However, this article differentiates between different TOGAF 10 audiences, and use cases, and considers that there are already ongoing Enterprise Architecture activities within the organization. This article helps to understand how to use the brand-new release.One of the major improvements of TOGAF 10 has been the new modular structure. The TOGAF Standard now consists of separate documents with a topic-centered structure. In addition, topics are ordered by their importance and stability over time. This means that fundamental Enterprise Architecture topics, such as the ADM, are located in the very center, the fundamentals part of TOGAF.Best practices, in contrast, are located in the TOGAF series guides, which now have become an official part of the Standard as well.Finally, emerging, and more volatile ideas are described by various publications and documentation that are stored in The Open Group Library. These include pocket guides, white papers, guides, datasheets, reference cards, and other useful documents.TOGAF 10 has a Modular StructureThe new structure is important because most organizations already have running Enterprise Architecture activities. Differently grown organizations require different architectures, processes, and governance. Using the old TOGAF version, organizations always had to cut out bits and pieces that complement their already existing processes and artifacts.The modular structure of TOGAF 10 makes this much easier. The Open Group calls this "topic support".Besides an established Enterprise Architecture practice, there are other reasons why a practitioner might not want to adapt to the full TOGAF Standard but instead customize it.What EA model is Right for my Organization?The EA requirements of companies can be very individual. They depend on general parameters, such as- Company size- Industry- Security requirements- Compliance requirementsThey also depend on the business model and competitive advantage parameters, such as- Customer frontends- Data integration- Data monetization strategy- Product lifecycles- Release cyclesFinally, they also depend on governance and operation model decisions, such as- Agility levels- Decision-making authoritiesWho Applies Enterprise Architecture, Who Uses TOGAF 10?Besides the parameters above, the role and the use case that an architect works on are important to decide whether and how to use the Standard.For instance, The Open Group mentions four roles for which TOGAF 10 is relevant. These are EA practitioners, EA consultants, EA tool vendors, and EA trainers.While each of those different roles would use the TOGAF 10 Standard differently, we today focus on the subgroups of the Enterprise Architect Practitioner. This role can be further broken down into roles that require solutions for their strategic, portfolio, project, or solution architecture work. Each of them requires different frameworks, best practices, and EA use cases.Luckily, EA supports a wide variety of use cases. These include Digitalization, realizing cost savings, simplifying, and harmonizing IT landscapes, and increasing reliability and resilience.The Modular Structure of TOGAF 10 Allows for Different Practitioners to Find What They NeedOlder TOGAF versions had a rather monolithic structure. If you wanted to apply for the ADM, you had to read half of the very lengthy TOGAF Standard.With version 10, the transformation towards a modular approach to the content was finalized. The Open Group now provides material for specific purposes. This helps Enterprise Architecture practitioners to find what they need. What is that content?TOGAF 10 Fundamental ContentThe following documents are part of the TOGAF Standard fundamental content:- Introduction and Core Concepts (88 pages)- Architecture Development Method (ADM) (154 pages)- ADM Techniques (88 pages)- Applying the ADM (36 pages)- Architecture Content (120 pages)- Enterprise Architecture Capability and Governance (64 pages)What are the TOGAF Series Guides?Besides the fundamental content, the TOGAF series guides offer topic-focused, modular best practices for applying Enterprise Architecture. As of May 2022, TOGAF 10 contains 23 TOGAF series guides in The Open Group Library. Those are:- Value Streams- Using the TOGAF Standard in the Digital Enterprise- TOGAF Digital Business Reference Model (DBRM)- The TOGAF Technical Reference Model (TRM)- The TOGAF Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model (III-RM): An Architected Approach to Boundaryless Information Flow- Organization Mapping- Microservices Architecture (MSA)- Information Mapping- Government Reference Model (GRM)- Enabling Enterprise Agility- Digital Technology Adoption: A Guide to Readiness Assessment and Roadmap Development- Business Scenarios- Business Models- Business Capabilities (Version 1 & 2)- Architecture Skills Framework- Architecture Maturity Models- Applying the TOGAF ADM using Agile Sprints- A Practitioners´ Approach to Developing Enterprise Architecture Following the TOGAF ADM- Business Architecture- Using the TOGAF Framework to Define and Govern Service-Oriented Architectures- The TOGAF Leader´s Guide to Establishing and Evolving an EA Capability- Information Architecture: Customer Master Data Management (C-MDM)- Architecture Project ManagementExamples of How to Use TOGAF 10Let us consider a few situations in which someone might want to use TOGAF 10. What should he or she do?As a Beginner in the Area of Enterprise Architecture, I Want to Understand the Basics, so that I can Quickly Create Value For my OrganizationA beginner wants to understand the fundamentals and does not want to be overwhelmed with lots of information and the newest developments.A beginner would therefore consider the fundamentals content of TOGAF. In particular, he or she would start by reading the Introduction and Core Concepts. After reading through those first 88 pages, he or she would then either proceed with the remaining fundamentals content or advance to a particular best practice guide that fits his or her current challenges.As Cloud Architect on a running project, I want to Understand TOGAF´s Point of View on Cloud Architecture in a Timely and Efficient MannerA cloud architect would probably be already familiar with the fundamentals of TOGAF. Instead of going through the full documentation, he or she would be interested in specific topics around cloud. Scanning through the series guides, the following would catch his or her attention:- The TOGAF Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model (III-RM): An Architected Approach to Boundaryless Information Flow- Microservices Architecture (MSA)- Using the TOGAF Framework to Define and Govern Service-Oriented ArchitecturesAs a Product Owner, I want to Understand the Concept and Approach of Business Capabilities That my Development Teams Applies So That we Can better AlignThe described Product Owner would want to understand a particular concept described by TOGAF. The new topic structure allows him or her to directly download the guide to Business Capabilities and start reading.As you can observe, different roles require different content from the new TOGAF 10 Standard. The modular structure makes it easy for different roles to focus on TOGAF 10 content that is worth reading for them! Read the full article

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What Makes TOGAF 10 a Valuable Contribution

TOGAF 10 was recently released. Major changes to the old version include a restructuring of the content to allow for easier understanding, fewer inconsistencies, and fewer duplications. The modularization of the content has progressed as well. There are now six individual documents forming the TOGAF Fundamental content and currently 23 more documents in the TOGAF Series Guides. Similar to a microservices architecture, this allows for single content pieces to be used or amended easier and new content to be quickly added as well. The TOGAF Standard now officially includes the TOGAF Series Guides which have been added to the library throughout the last years. While this seems a minor change at first, it means that the TOGAF Standard has now content that is subject to much shorter release and update cycles. The Open Group already stated that this will be the case in the future. In addition, the new version provides an updated and more elaborated view on central topics, such as information and master data management, agility, resilience, and adaptability. Last but not least, the TOGAF glossary content has received an update. Definitions have been added, changed, or removed.

Why Was a New TOGAF Version 10 Necessary?

A major critique about TOGAF was that it contained quite old content that in large parts was outdated. For instance, older versions did not address Digitalization, Cloud, and Agile topics sufficiently or from a decade-old perspective. Also, the TOGAF Standard was hard to read, way too long, and had a rather monolithic structure. The TOGAF Standard was hardly changed in version 9.2, but new and more modern content was established via series guides and added to The Open Group Library. In consequence, those sources, besides content from other organizations and companies, became much more relevant as input for architecture work. It is great to see that The Open Group addressed many of those critiques with version 10.

How Does TOGAF 10 Change the Relevance of the TOGAF Standard?

I analyzed the relevance of TOGAF 9.2 in detail in another few posts. My conclusion showed mixed results with particular aspects of TOGAF being outdated and others still relevant. Fundamental TOGAF Content Content that I believe is still relevant today is mainly about the fundamental architectural approach, frameworks, metamodel, and governance. Reviewing the fundamental content of TOGAF reveals that this content makes up for the largest parts in the new version. TOGAF 10 Certification In terms of signaling through a TOGAF 10 certification, I don’t think that anything changed. For Enterprise Architects seeking new job opportunities, having a TOGAF certification has always been very beneficial. The new release will not change anything for the better, or the worse. TOGAF 10 Content Updates A lot of content that I perceived to be outdated has been updated in the new version, such as content about Digital and Agile. Both topics have a dedicated series guide now. In addition, topics such as privacy, architecture services, architecture alternatives, and business scenarios received additional sections or descriptions. I find it especially valuable that the TOGAF Glossary has been updated. For many organizations, even those that don't strictly follow TOGAF standards, the definitions build the foundation for their organization-wide alignments and common basis. It is good to see that those are now up to date and compatible with today´s IT environments. Business and IT Audience in TOGAF 10 Last but not least, the new release specifies the audience of the TOGAF Standard. Different roles are addressed separately to customize their individual experience with the content. These include Enterprise Architecture practitioners, leaders of Enterprise Architecture teams, and sponsors of Enterprise Architecture teams. This has been a good idea because Enterprise Architecture becomes more and more omnipresent in organizations and business stakeholders nowadays actively execute Enterprise Architecture activities. If you are part of such a team, I recommend to have a fundamental knowledge about TOGAF.

Is TOGAF 10 Worth It?

Naturally, the new version does not fully cover my ideas and improvement desires. For instance, the TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM) still has the same phases and does not reflect today's architectural priorities in terms of security and data architecture. I would also prefer to see business stakeholders even more involved than they are today. Yet, the new TOGAF version made a very good impression on me. Lots of disadvantages and critiques have been addressed. TOGAF, as an understandable and compatible framework, as well as a supporting and guiding set of documentation, became much more relevant and valuable. The new release made TOGAF more valuable through the content updates, especially because of the easier way to find the content you need, the ease to apply parts of the whole framework, and the new structure which allows for more frequent updates of the Standard. Read the full article

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TOGAF 10 is Now Released and Available!

On the 25th of April, 2022, The Open Group released the TOGAF version 10. This is a major milestone not only for The Open Group but for the whole Enterprise Architecture industry and all practitioners. Being the go-to standard for Enterprise Architects, the tenth version of "The Standard" has been desired for a long time. It also has to meet high expectations.

Who is Behind The TOGAF Standard 10?

The publisher of TOGAF 10 is The Open Group, a global consortium developing open, vendor-neutral technology standards and certifications. The Open Group members come from many large, global organizations from different industries, including IBM, Oracle, Huawei, and Philips. This ensures that frameworks and best practices developed are also relevant across industries. All in all, TOGAF is the most important source for Enterprise Architecture content that one may consult.

The History of TOGAF - What´s the Significance of the TOGAF 10 Release?

The first version of TOGAF was released in 1995. Version 9, the last major update, was released in 2011. In 2018, a minor update was released as version 9.2. Being a minor release, version 9.2 did by far not sufficiently address the tremendous changes that happened in and around IT in the last decade. In 2018, I analyzed the changes between TOGAF version 9.1 and 9.2. I concluded that few substantial improvements had been made to address the Digital Transformation as a whole. As a result, the importance of TOGAF declined, new sources for Enterprise Architecture best practices emerged, and especially questions about topics such as Digitalization, Cloud Computing, or Agility were answered by other sources than TOGAF. Still, everyone waited for the next big release of the TOGAF version 10, to provide answers to those questions from their perspective. The release of the TOGAF version 10 on the 25th of April, 2022 marks a significant milestone for The Open Group and the whole Enterprise Architecture community.

What is TOGAF 10?

Above all else, version 10 of TOGAF is a restructuring of the Enterprise Architecture content to make the Standard easier to read, consume, and also to manage, and update. The key to this is a further modularization of the content. This modularization already started with version 9.2, where the TOGAF series guides were initially introduced to provide additional content on topics that change more often and become outdated quickly. In contrast, the TOGAF Standard size was reduced from over 692 to 532 pages and only contained content that is pretty stable over time and does not need to be completely changed every few years. With version 10, The Open Group went further down this path. More content has been removed from the core content and added to the TOGAF series guides. In addition, the TOGAF Library, which holds further, quite useful content and has been continuously growing over the past years, has been officially added to the overall TOGAF content overview. The result is a picture that looks like an onion and has the most stable content in the center and quicker changing content in the outer layers.

The Content of TOGAF 10

The TOGAF Fundamental Content is split into 6 separate documents, which are: - Introduction and Core Concepts (88 pages) - Architecture Development Method (ADM) (154 pages) - ADM Techniques (88 pages) - Applying the ADM (36 pages) - Architecture Content (120 pages) - Enterprise Architecture Capability and Governance (64 pages) In addition, the TOGAF Series Guides cover lots of content that previously has been in the Standard itself, but is now published as a separate guide. In addition, there have been completely new guides added - a few of them already in the past months: - Business Architecture - Information Architecture - Security Architecture - Enterprise Architecture/Agile Architecture - Enterprise Architecture/Digital Enterprise - Technology Architecture - MSA/SOA Architecture - Adapting the ADM - ... Last but not least, the TOGAF library contains further documents supporting the TOGAF Fundamental Content and the TOGAF Series Guides. For instance, the library includes different translations, guidelines for specific industries (e.g., capability maps), and more subjective documents, as well as whitepapers, webinars, study guides, and reference cards.

What is New in TOGAF 10?

According to The Open Group, most changes to TOGAF address the restructuring of the content into modular pieces of digestible documentation. However, this is not the only notable change. I did not have the chance yet to go through all the content in detail. However, after first studying the new material, I noted the following changes in particular: TOGAF Series Guides are now Part of the TOGAF 10 Standard While in 9.2, there was the TOGAF Standard and the TOGAF Series Guides, the latter is now an official part of the TOGAF Standard. While the TOGAF Series Guides previously were further supporting material outside the Standard, this role is now taken by the broader TOGAF Library, providing further, faster changing, content. TOGAF Architecture Layers are Moved to The Series Guides A major aspect of the old TOGAF was the explanation of the different layers. In version 10, the layers of business architecture, information architecture, and technology architecture are moved to the series guides. As part of business architecture, the topic of business capabilities moved from the fundamental content into the series guide. This underlines the intention to move topics that might be less stable (e.g., definitions, importance, approach) into the series guides and out of the fundamental content. Security Architecture Becomes an Incremental Part The topic of security architecture has been added to the same level of importance as the other architecture layers. Yet, it has not been added to the Architecture Development Method (ADM). Digital and Agile are Now Part of TOGAF 10 More modern topics, such as Digital and Agile are now addressed within the TOGAF Standard. Each now has its series guide. Information and Data Content Has Been Added to TOGAF 10 The available content about information mapping and master data management increased significantly. Broader Audience of TOGAF The new version tries to become relevant to a broader audience. It provides steps and content for a particular audience. Also, the IT focus of some chapters has been removed to become relevant for business as well. For instance, around the topic of EA Capability and Governance. TOGAF Definitions Quite some definitions have been added (e.g., a definition of a product or a digital architecture), changed, or removed. There are surely more changes hidden trends in the new version, which I will write about after I had the chance for a detailed review of TOGAF 10.

Is TOGAF 10 Worth It?

My initial impression of TOGAF 10 is very positive. Let´s summarize the arguments: - The Open Group has managed to cut the TOGAF Standard into smaller, better digestible pieces. The new modular structure makes the content much easier to grasp. Different organizations with different architecture styles can also better choose what to consider and what not. - The core content of TOGAF has been further consolidated so that overall consistency increased and redundant content has been removed. Content that is likely to change quickly over time has been moved to the TOGAF Series Guides so that the TOGAF Fundamental Content increases in overall importance and relevance. - The new structure allows new content to be added more frequently to the TOGAF Standard by simply releasing new TOGAF guides. This is also done outside the normal release cycle of the Standard to address new, emerging ideas. - Several new concepts or topics that tremendously increased their importance over the past years were added, refined, or described in more detail. Those include most topics mentioned above, including the concept of architecture scenarios, information management importance, and customer master data management. All in all, I am positively surprised by the new version. Especially the modular structure and the inclusion of the further content created by The Open Group into the wider TOGAF Standard (e.g., many "How-To" guides) make it an extremely valuable piece of content for all Enterprise Architects.

TOGAF 10 Certification

At this point, there is no information on how the release of TOGAF 10 impacts the TOGAF certifications. It can be taken for granted that there will be new training requirements and new trainings for TOGAF 10 available soon. However, it is not yet clear if someone who is certified in a previous TOGAF version needs to redo the certification. I assume that there will be a shorter exam for those who are certified in TOGAF 9, which will mainly address the restructuring of the content and the few new concepts. As soon as there is new information, I will provide them. Read the full article

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Business Architecture concepts that help Business and IT to align (Value Streams, Business Capabilities, Business Processes)

Business Architecture has become a broadly used concept not only by Enterprise Architects, but also by all kinds of stakeholders, including business people. In today´s article, we discuss three major concepts that can be used to describe an organization´s business architecture.

How to Model your Business Architecture?

In an Enterprise Architecture model, business architecture usually sits on top of the other layers. It serves as the connection between the IT layers (e.g., applications, data, technology) and the translation to business terms. However, business architectures are not only used in the area of Enterprise Architecture. Moreover, development teams, product teams, and other teams regularly exchanging requirements and progress with business stakeholders have adopted the concept of a business architecture. In some organizations, this is reflected by the usage of business capabilities. In other organizations, value streams or business processes are used for that. What are the differences between them and when should you choose which one?

Business Capability Models

Business capabilities focus on what has to be done or what an organization can do. They are rather generic and high-level. Their goal is to provide a stable description of the business. In order to achieve that, a business capability is the result of a combination of different components. Typically, those are people, process, and technology. Considering all three aspects allows to describe an ability of an organization as independent as possible from each indiviual one. For instance, a capability should not describe a particular process of an organization or be based on a particular technology that the company uses. Consequently, a capability is more stable over time as it does not include many details about company particularities. Business capability mapping is used as translator between business and IT. Common situations in which there is a use case for business capabilities include (click here for the detailed explanation): - Provide IT landscape transparency on all underlying enterprise architecture layers (typically applications, data, technologies) - Prioritize projects based on the importance of their underlying business capabilities - Optimize demand management processes based on business capabilities - Optimize application landscapes based on business capabilities - Use business capabilities to align different IT landscapes in the context of an IT post merger approach If you want to get started with business capabilities and do not repeat the failures of others, I highly recommend you read through the 12 Must-Dos to get Business Capabilities Right

Business Process Modelling

A business process is the sequence, in which functional activities and decision points are conducted. In contrast to business capabilities, which describe the what, business processes describe how an organization does something. A business process brings clarity around the order and reason for activities being performed in a predetermined order. It illustrates dependencies and the effect if certain activities are not carried out. Nowadays, many companies have detailed business processes modelled on different levels. However, starting to model new business processes can be time-consuming. In order to save time and resources and to ensure industry standards, many organizations start their detailed modelling activities with an industry standard framework, such as the one from APQC. Business processes are used when the order of something or decision points are important. Typically, this is the case when process models are used to achieve operational excellence.

Value Streams

Value streams are a special type of business processes. They focus on maximizing the value for a customer. This is done by showing the outside-in perspective of a business process or, more generally, the operations of an organization. A value stream visually shows how an organization creates value for a customer, making transparent all required end-to-end activities that add value. In addition, value streams include: - The stakeholders initiating or being involved in the value stream - The phases in which exactly value is generated - The value proposition derived from the value stream Value streams are the most high-level concept when it comes to business architecture. They are typically used to gain a broad, common understanding of a business. For instance, during restructuring activities. In a second step, business capabilities would be used to understand what exactly creates the value. In a last step, a business process would be modelled to understand the details. This shows that all three concepts have their place in business architecture, however, they especially differ in the level of detail that they are made for. Read the full article

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EA Framework Types you Should Know (Management, Layers, Assessment)

Enterprise Architecture frameworks help to do enterprise architecture right. However, different types of frameworks exist, which are often confusing. Today´s article explains the difference between Enterprise Architecture management frameworks, Enterprise Architecture layers frameworks, and Enterprise Architecture Assessment frameworks.

Enterprise Architecture Layers Help to Understand the Scope of an IT Landscape

There are different Enterprise Architecture layer frameworks and they differ in the set of layers that they include. Each architecture layer can be understood as one view on the IT landscape of a company. For instance, the application layer provides a view only on the applications, while the data layer focuses solely on the data, how they are connected etc. If you are establishing an EA practice, the right choice of an overarching framework is important. Organizations that deal with sensitive data or with data that might be very valuable, political etc., will put a higher focus on IT Security compared to a small startup that just started operations. Accordingly, the first company is more likely to include a security layer into its Enterprise Architecture framework. Let´s consider the top three options for Enterprise Architecture Framework layers. 1. The TOGAF Enterprise Architecture Framework A traditional and widely-spread choice is the TOGAF Enterprise Architecture Framework. It consits of three layers, which are business architecture, information systems architecture, and technology architecture. Interesting about the TOGAF Enterprise Architecture Layer Framework is that it is quite lean. For instance, the information systems architecture layer consolidates information about applications and data. If you are looking for a framework that focuses more on data integration architecture, you might want to choose a different framework. Leanr more about TOGAF with those 7 pictures. 2. Enterprise Architecture Data Integration Architecture and Application Architecture Layers The TOGAF framework, including the proposed layers, is often perceived as outdated. A more-often used model is the BAIT model of IT architecture layers. It has four layers, which are business architecture, application architecture, data and information architecture, and technology architecture.

The main difference to the TOGAF framework is that is has a seperate application layer and a separate data and information architecture layer. This is generally beneficial if your organization has a lot of applications to manage and also wants to specifically manage enterprise data, such as their metamodel, the data integration architecture etc. Due to the general increase of applications in an average application landscape and a steep increase of data importance, it sounds reasonable to show the two aspects seperately. Obviously, it is also possible to manage your enterprise data integration architecture without a dedicated layer in your enterprise architecture framework, however, it makes things easier. 3. Focusing on Enterprise Security Architecture Last but not least, IT Security importance is steadily rising. Given that, enterprise architecture frameworks start to separately point out that aspect in their IT landscapes. This framework is an extension of the BAIT model and is therefore called BAIT+S model, where S stands for the security architecture layer.

Again, not having a separate Security Architecture layer in your framework does not mean that you cannot have security architects, security architecture, and generally a sufficient focus on the topic. However, it makes it clear right from the core of enterprise architecture activities.

Enterprise Architecture Management Frameworks Help to Manage EA Practices

Next on our list is the Enterprise Architecture management framework. While the EA layers framework focuses on the IT landscape assets, the EA management framework focuses on the capabilities, activities, skills, and content that an Enterprise Architecture practice deals with or should deal with. Let´s take a look at the EA management framework of TOGAF, as well as my own suggestion. 1. TOGAF Enterprise Architecture Management Framework The TOGAF Architecture Capability Framework does exactly what I described above. It is a view on what an Enterprise Architecture practice should be able to to in order to work well and provide good results. As you can see in the picture below from The Open Group, an EA practice requires a governance body, a pool of skilled resources, a portfolio of projects and its governance, an architecture repository to store deliverables, results, and documents, and an interface to business operations.

Picture taken from: The TOGAF Standard, Version 9.2 - Introduction to Part VI (opengroup.org) 2. Best Practice Enterprise Architecture Management Framework TOGAF provides a decent start to understanding what is required to manage an Enterprise Architecture practice. However, one needs to combine different sources of information to get a full picture. Based on my experience, I usually propose a different approach with three main categories, which is shown below. - Strategy & Organization a) Strategy & Governance b) Organization Management - Content Management a) Business Architecture b) Application Architecture c) Data & Integration Architecture d) Technology & Infrastructure Architecture e) IT Security Architecture - Architecture Implementation & Support a) Architecture Realization & Synergies b) Enabler & Facilitator Each of the elements stands for a set of capabilities and services that an Enterprise Architecture practice should deliver to its organization. For instance, most common tasks around an application architecture include application strategy, application landscape management, microservices management, services management, software assets and licenses management, and configuration management. Another example would be Organization Management, which includes capabilities such as EA governance, organization & culture, processes, roles and responsibilities, EA environment, risk management, financial management, and performance and quality management. If you are interested in the full framework or in understanding specific aspects of it in detail, please feel free to get in contact with me and I am happy to help.

Enterprise Architecture Assessment Frameworks Help to Understand What you Should Improve in Your Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture management frameworks let you know what your organization should be caple of to do. An Enterprise Architecture assessment framework helps you to understand where you should improve your current activities. As both framework types are based on EA activities, they can be quite similar in practice. The difference is that the first one suggests what to have, the second one evaluates the quality of what you have. In addition, the heart of an Enterprise Architecture assessment framework are its assessment questions, which help to evaluate your As-Is state as objectively as possible. Examples of Enterprise Architecture Assessment Questions - How well is the EA strategy defined including vision and mission? - Are principles defined for all architecture layers? (e.g. business, application, data, infrastructure) - Are there any agile roles defined within the EA function? - To what extend are EA processes lean and light-weight? - To what extend is an microservice strategy defined? - To what extend is meta data assessed and managed? - ... A good assessment framework should have at least 5-10 questions per area in your management framework. When assessing, keep in mind that you need to ask the right questions to the right stakeholders in your organization. If you want to learn more about that topic, feel free to contact me as well.

Enterprise Architecture Frameworks - Different Types and Different Purposes

We´ve learnt about three different types of Enterprise Architecture Frameworks today, which are: - Enterprise Architecture Layers Framework - Enterprise Architecture Management Framework - Enterprise Architecture Assessment Framework They are all relatively similar, yet, each has its own purpose and it is important to understand them. Is your organization using different frameworks? It would be great to learn about them in the comments section below! Read the full article

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Why Enterprise Architecture Activities are More Important Than Ever

Today´s content forms the sixth and last of six parts of the series called “Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture?”. In this series, I provide my view on the footprint of today´s Enterprise Architecture, the potential death of the role of an Enterprise Architect, the big players, such as TOGAF from The Open Group, AWS, or Azure, as well as the role of EA tool providers and other related certificates and developments on the market. In today´s part six, we draw conclusions from the previous parts and forecast what that implies for the future. Regardless of whether you are reading this article or whether you are listening to the podcast version, make sure to also check out the first five parts of this series!

Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture? – Part 6 of 6

1. Enterprise Architecture Activities are Taken on by Different Roles EA is not always called EA anymore, but the practice remains highly relevant. Most of today’s industry and thought leaders providing best practices for modern EA do not call themselves Enterprise Architects anymore. This is why the practice is perceived less relevant today. However, there are new titles and roles that cover Enterprise Architecture aspects, which did not use to be part of traditional Enterprise Architecture models. In addition, Enterprise Architecture activities are often covered by IT architects, which have some IT and some Enterprise responsibilities at the same time. The result is that Enterprise Architecture and IT Architecture become closer aligned and sometimes addressed by one and the same role. 2. New Enterprise Architecture Management Frameworks Because of an increased relevance and urgency for frameworks and approaches, new players entered the area of Enterprise Architecture. It seems that the structures of the traditional, renowned Enterprise Architecture organizations are too slow to react to the disruption triggered by the Digital Transformation. In consequence, providers of new tools and technologies, especially from the cloud area, develop their own frameworks and approaches to address the multiple new challenges of their organizations. 3. Enterprise Architecture Frameworks are Necessary to Drive a Successful Digital Transformation Digital developments still trigger regular disruptions and a strong growth (e.g., new cloud service providers and supporting technologies). Consequently, there are many newly emerging market players with new and diverse solutions, resulting in a scattered landscape of Enterprise Architecture best practices. Hence, EA is targeted throughout different practices and departments and by different players, such as tool providers, large cloud providers, agile frameworks, organizations, and communities. The Future of Enterprise Architecture While in many areas, diverse solutions and competition is beneficial, this is not necessarily the case for Enterprise Architecture – which aims at providing standards and comparability. In addition, the diverse market solutions might make the work of IT and Enterprise Architects more challenging in the future as they need to keep an overview and align altogether. As a result, the diverse landscape, which developed in recent years, might consolidate and harmonize under a new (or even the old) umbrella term covering key activities and objectives of Enterprise Architecture. This is the end of the series "Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture". If you liked it or it was helpful for you, please like, share, and let me know your feedback in the comments section below! Read the full article

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8 Ways to Do Enterprise Architecture trainings or online classes

After the last post presented quite some degrees, university courses, classes, and certificates about Enterprise Architecture, today´s article focuses on trainings and online classes. While the difference is not always straightforward, the trainings and classes are usually shorter and cheaper and there is a larger number of providers and trainers. Also, trainings often focus on achieving a particular certificate that is widely accepted on the market (e.g., TOGAF, ArchiMate).

Online Classes and Trainings about Enterprise Architecture

1. Enterprise Architecture Center of Excellence trainings and certificates Enterprise Architecture Center of Excellence (EACOE) provides trainings, consulting, and certifications in Enterprise Architecture. We briefly covered the certifications in our last post. In addition, the EACOE provides a workshop approach, which has a length of 4 days and covers theoretical and practical aspects of EA. Fees amount to 3,695 US dollars. 2. The Knowledge Academy courses for future Enterprise Architects The Knowledge Academy provides Enterprise Architecture courses with a focus on market standard certificates. They provide two different courses packages: - Enterprise Architect Certification, which includes content to certify in TOGAF, ArchiMate, and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. - Complete Enterprise Architect Expert Package, which includes content to certify in TOGAF, ITIL, CISSP, and AWS Architect. Unfortunately, there are no prices for the courses on their website and one must quote individually. They also state that there is a current offer, providing a 40% discount. However, the countdown for this “limited offer” resets when you refresh the page, so I don’t think this is real. 3. Web Age Solutions INC general enterprise architecture trainings Web Age Solutions INC provides a series of Enterprise Architecture trainings as well. They have two general EA trainings and one TOGAF training: - General Architecture Training. This includes the following classes: Integrating Enterprise Architecture and Solution Architecture, Integrating Solution Architecture, Management Skills for Architects, Architecture Foundation Workshop, Architecture Techniques, Fundamentals of Architectural Thinking, and ArchiMate for Architects. - Enterprise Architecture Training. This includes the following classes: Management Quick Start, EA Getting Started, Enterprise Architecture Practitioner´s Guide, Reference Architecture and Roadmaps, Establishing an Architecture Baseline, and Introduction to Agile Architecture. - TOGAF Training including both levels, as well as exam preparation. 4. Digital Academy certified enterprise architecture practitioner The Digital Academy provides a training called Certified Enterprise Architecture Practitioner. It has a duration of 7 days with 8 hours per day and costs roughly 5,300 dollars including the exam. The course content covers general EA topics, as well as specific TOGAF content. Classes include: Introduction to enterprise architecture, architecture lifecycle & development methodology, architecture principles and patterns, business architecture, information architecture, application architecture, technology architecture, architecture governance & management, architecture requirements & change management, EA and relationship to SOA, architecture partitioning, content framework and meta model, capability-based planning, business transformation readiness assessment, using TOGAF standard to develop security architectures, architecture repository, using TOGAF standard to develop SOAs, and risk management.

Online classes providers and individual trainers complement the Enterprise Architecture degrees, courses, classes, and certificates landscape

Again, there are quite a few companies nowadays that provide platforms for individuals to offer their courses and online classes to students. In the following, I am going to mention four of them including their offers for Enterprise Architecture courses. 5. Coursera EA Courses Coursera provides a foundational training to Enterprise Architecture with work load of approximately 12 hours, which can be taken online. The course itself can be started for free, however, the certification costs money. According to coursera, the training has been taken by more than 14,000 individuals and they gave an average rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars. 6. Udemy EA Courses Udemy has a broad library of online courses from private lecturers. Naturally, there are also several courses on Enterprise Architecture available. Courses on Udemy include: - Enterprise Architecture - Enterprise Architecture by Example - The Practice of Enterprise Architecture Part I-III There are also many more courses that target the TOGAF or other certifications. As there are often sales on Udemy, the best way to book such a course is to wait for that time. 7. EdX EA Courses edX provides an overview of courses and degrees provided by other institutions. Introduction to Business Architecture is a free course provided by TokyoTechX that requires 2-3 hours per week for a duration of 4 weeks. 8. LinkedIn Learning EA Courses LinkedIn Learning is another site that offers trainings and online classes. Enterprise Architecture classes include: - Enterprise Architecture Foundations with a duration of only 1 hour. It can be started with a free month. - Enterprise Architecture in Practice – very similar to the foundation with a duration of only 1 hour. It is included in the free month as well. That´s it for the overview of current Enterprise Architecture university degrees, courses, classes, certificates, and trainings – online or offline. I hope that you found some interesting offers for your situation. If you encountered additional offerings, please let me and the other readers know by commenting below! Read the full article

[digital-roadmap-management]

16 Options for Enterprise Architecture Degrees, University Classes and Courses

There is a vast amount of learning possibilities in Enterprise Architecture. Options vary greatly, from full degrees, specializations of general master programs, individual courses, classes, or trainings, as well as online business programs. In today´s article, I provide an overview of the different options that exist, what topics they cover, and how much they cost.

Enterprise Architecture Degrees – Master´s Degrees in Enterprise Architecture

I found four interesting full degrees in Enterprise Architecture. Two of them are offered by European universities (UK and Belgium), and two are offered by American universities: 1. Arden University Master´s Degree in Enterprise Architecture Arden University (UK) offers a Master´s degree in Enterprise Architecture. It is set-up as a part-time master with a duration of at least one year. Tuition fees amount to 10,550 British pound. 2. University of Antwerp Executive Master in Enterprise IT Architecture University of Antwerp (Belgium) provides an executive Master in Enterprise IT Architecture. It´s tuition fees are 24,000 Euros. The degree focuses on modules on business strategy, leadership, change and data science management with a total of 60 ECTS (equals 1,680 hours of work). 3. Penn State University Enterprise Architecture and Business Transformation Degree Penn State University (US) offers the degree Enterprise Architecture and Business Transformation. It requires a total of 33 credits and includes mandatory courses as well as a variety of elective courses. The following classes are mandatory: Enterprise Architecture Foundations I, Enterprise Modelling, Enterprise Information Technology Architecture, Architecting Enterprise Security and Risk Analysis, Managing and Leading People in Organizations, Financial Management, Global Strategic Management, and Strategic Business Architecture, and the research paper or project. In addition, there is a total of 12 electives to choose from the areas of Business Architecture, Project Management, Security Architecture, and Supply Chain. Tuition fees for this degree are 31,350 US dollars. 4. Stevens Institute of Technology Degrees Stevens Institute of Technology provides a couple of related courses, e.g. Technology Management Master´s Program. However, as most of them seem to target general IT Management, I am not considering them further.

Master Specializations, Courses, and Certificates about Enterprise Architecture

While there is only a small amount of university master´s degrees that solely focus on Enterprise Architecture, there is a much broader choice if you are only interested in a specialization or extended course in that area.

Enterprise Architecture Degree Specializations and Individual Courses

Degree specializations are offered more frequently and are usually offered in addition to a degree in Information Technology, Computer Sciences, Informatics etc. Often, universities offering such degree specializations also provide the possibility to take the required enterprise architecture classes individually. I am going to present 6 options in the following. 5. University of Twente Specialization in Enterprise Architecture & IT Management University of Twente has a degree specialization called Enterprise Architecture & IT Management. It is a sub-degree of the Master´s degree Business Information Technology. The full Master´s degree has 120 credits (each about 28 hours of work), while the specialization for the Enterprise Architecture & IT Management degree requires you to take at least four out of the following six courses: Smart Industry, E-Strategizing, Electronic Commerce, ICT Management, Implementation of IT in organisations, and Architecture of Information Systems. Tuition fees for this two-years Master´s degree amount to 4,418 Euros for European students and 25,500 Euros for students from other countries. 6. ITU University of Copenhagen Master´s Degree Specialization in Enterprise Architecture ITU University of Copenhagen (Denmark) has a Master´s degree in Digital Innovation and Management. As part of this degree, there is an elective called Enterprise Architecture. It has 7.5 ECTS (i.e., roughly 210 hours of effort behind) and covers the following topics: The role of EA in digital transformation, information, business, and application perspectives of EA, the role of EA in strategic alignment of business and IT, design and modelling techniques in baseline and target architecture, and governance structures within architecture. 7. University of South Australia Postgraduate Course in Enterprise Architecture The university of South Australia provides a postgraduate course in Enterprise Architecture. It has a length of 13 weeks with weekly classes of two hours. For Australian, the price is 3,100 Australian dollars, for all other students, it is 3,675 Australian dollars. 8. National University of Singapore Certified Enterprise Architecture Course The National University of Singapore has a course called Certified Enterprise Architecture Practitioner. It has a duration of 7 days, 8 hours per day, and costs roughly 5,700 Singapore dollars. The course has a strong focus on TOGAF as well as fundamental knowledge around the 4 architecture layers. 9. University of Denver Enterprise Architecture Course University of Denver provides a four-credits course on Enterprise Architecture. Costs are roughly 3,000 US dollars. The course covers basics of EA, such as reference architectures, architecture patterns, and a comparison of EA and other architecture types, opportunities and drawbacks of different EA frameworks, their practical appliance, as well as recent trends, such as cloud computing, global regulatory compliance, data protection, artificial intelligence, and ICT ecosystems. 10. Ryerson University Advanced Enterprise Architecture and Infrastructure Management Course Ryerson University (Canada) – The Chang School of Continuing Education provides a course called Advanced Enterprise Architecture and Infrastructure Management. It consists of 4 courses, from which three are mandatory: Business process design, enterprise architecture, and information systems security and privacy. In addition, one elective can be chosen from: Supply chain process architecture, data communications network design, cloud computing, and IS project management.

Enterprise Architecture Certificates and Workshops

In contrast to EA degree specializations and individual courses, there are also certificates and workshops available. Generally, they cover less content than full courses, are shorter, cheaper, and are usually available online. The number of providers of such certificates also increases compared to providers of university degrees. However, the differentiation between courses and certificates is not always clear and it should be rather perceived as a soft differentiation. I am going to present six certificates and workshops in the following. 11. University of Toronto Enterprise Architecture Certificate University of Toronto – School of Continuing Studies (Canada) offers an Enterprise Architecture certificate. It consists of three classes, which are called Foundations of Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Development & Governance, and Tools & Applications in Enterprise Architecture. Each course consists of online conference calls of a duration of 90 minutes. In total, the certificate requires you to spend about 30 hours in those online conference calls. After starting the certificate, one has three years to complete it. Each course costs 769 Canadian dollars, therefore the total tuitions amount to 2,307 Canadian dollars. 12. University of Technology Sydney Digital Enterprise Architecture Workshop The university of Technology Sydney provides a two-days’ workshop called Digital Enterprise Architecture via UTS. The price is 1,500 Canadian dollars. The following content is covered: Digital ecosystem, digital innovation & transformation, digital enterprise architecture, adaptive EA framework core concepts and components, adaptive EA design principles, metamodel, and layers, adaptive EA practice capabilities, pipeline, and services, and digital EA case studies. 13. Penn State University Graduate Certificate in Enterprise Architecture Penn State University does not only provide a full Enterprise Architecture degree, but also provides a second option: Graduate Certificate in Enterprise Architecture. The degree consists of three classes, each worth 3 credits. Those are Enterprise Architecture Foundations I, Enterprise Modelling, and Enterprise Information Technology Architecture. Tuition fees are 8,550 US dollars. 14. University of California EA Class Digital Transformation University of California, Berkeley provides an EA class called Digital Transformation. It is online, has a duration of two months, and is provided by the renowned Haas School of Business (ExecEd program). Program modules include Opportunities for Digital Transformation, The Role of Data, The Process of Digital Transformation, Digital Business Models, People and the Organization, Technology and Policy, and Conclusion and Action Plan. Tuition fees are about 2,600 US dollars. 15. Carnegie Mellon University Program Enterprise Architecture and Organisational Design Carnegie Mellon University provides an Enterprise Architecture and Organizational Design program through its institute for software research. It is called certified Enterprise Architect and consists of three courses, which are: EA Fundamentals, Advanced EA, and EA for Mergers and Acquisitions. The program is designed as a 12-weeks program with online classes. Average required work per week is about 6-8 hours. 16. Enterprise Architecture Center of Excellence (EAOCE) Trainings and Certifications Enterprise Architecture Center of Excellence (EACOE) provides trainings, consulting, and certifications in Enterprise Architecture. The following certifications are offered: Enterprise Architect, Senior Enterprise Architect, Distinguished Enterprise Architect, and Enterprise Architect Fellow. All certificates expire after a few years. Also, they require you to be an actual Enterprise Architect before taking the course for a particular number of years. As written on their website, fees for all certifications and workshops are the same, which are 3,695 US dollars. There are quite some choices and different offers around the world. Fortunately, many of them are provided via online classes, so that students can freely choose. However, most Enterprise Architects have no such degree. It is by far more common to learn on the job, gather relevant certificates about frameworks and approaches (for instance TOGAF) and to take smaller trainings. In the next post, I am going to talk about those online trainings. There is an even broader choice, but also the quality is quite heterogeneous. Therefore, make sure to read the article on it! Read the full article

[digital-roadmap-management]

New TOGAF Developments in 2022

Steve Nunn, the president and CEO of The Open Group, which is the organization publishing TOGAF, recently provided some insights onto what is planned for 2022. It is great to see that his statements further confirm what I presumed in 2020 about the future development of TOGAF. This article summarizes the most important statements, puts them into context and helps to understand the relevance of TOGAF in the future.

Current State of The Open Group

In his article about 2021 achievements of The Open Group and new developments in 2022, Steve addresses a couple on interesting topics, among others: - The Open Group celebrated its 25th anniversary last year - The amount of individuals certified has now reached 115,000. I already addressed this strong growth of certified TOGAF individuals in one of my posts when it just hit the 100,000 mark - Several specific areas of The Open Group reached milestones. Among them, the release of the OSDU Data Platform Mercury release, the SOSA technical standard for reference architecture, and the FACE training program - As I noted in 2020, only 3% of all global TOGAF certifications were achieved in China. Being China such a huge market, its clear that The Open Group should put an extra focus on expanding here. In accordance, a particular achievement of 2021 was to translate many documents into Mandarin to ease the usage and increase acceptance - Other growing markets are also specifially addressed, such as Brasil and India - Feedback for the ArchiMate 3.1 has been collected and the release is planned for Mid 2022 - IT4IT is also planning to release version 3.0 in the near future - The Open Group is hosting a Toolkit Tuesday Broadcast Series, which I found quite interesting to listen to! - The Open Group has also several forums working on activities towards solving urgent current questions, such as Cyber Security, Supply Chain Security, and mass vaccination campaigns - Lastly, the Open FAIR certification program reached 1,000 certified individuals

What to Expect from TOGAF in 2022

I often hear questions such as: Is TOGAF still relevant for Enterprise Architects? Is TOGAF still relevant nowadays? In 2022? What will replace TOGAF? Is TOGAF outdated? My observation is that TOGAF has still quite some relevance even today. However, some parts of it are outdated. Also, it seems that The Open Group has a new strategy regarding TOGAF and its other certifications, frameworks, and standards in mind. The recent information from Steve Nunn confirm those thoughts.

What is the TOGAF Roadmap 2022?

The relative relevance of TOGAF declines The (relative) relevance of the TOGAF certification will most likely reduce in the future and it seems that this is also inteded by The Open Group: - The Open Group lately focusses on numerous other certifications, which in part also cover aspects that one would expect in the TOGAF Standard itself (e.g., Digital Practitioner) - The current version, TOGAF 9.2, has several outdated chapters, however, a quick update seems not a priority - In contrast, the TOGAF Standard is supposed to be the stable center of the framework, while a list of supplementing guides are supposed to cover topics that change more frequently - Compared to version 9.1, TOGAF 9.2 has been conslidated by more than 160 pages The TOGAF Standard is being restructured Steve Nunn provides evidence to my thoughts above: The Open Group is currently working on a restructuring of the TOGAF Standard. However, there is still no timeline officially communicated which suggests when a new TOGAF version will be released. In any case, a key aspect to the restructuring is the current work and elaboration of the TOGAF Series Guides. Those focus on topics that are changing more frequently and that need to be updated more often than the content in the TOGAF Standards. Considering the Digital Transformation and current trends and developments in IT, it is likely that rather more content will be categorized as "frequently changing" than "stable". Hence, another clear indication that the Standard will become less relevant (while the guides will become more important). TOGAF Series Guides will replace TOGAF - at least in parts Given the likely future importance of the TOGAF® Series Guide, let´s take a look at the topics currently covered: - Organization Mapping - Architecture Maturity Models - Architecture Skills Framework - Information Mapping - Business Models - Business Capabilities - Architecture Project Management - A Practitioners’ Approach to Developing Enterprise Architecture Following the TOGAF® ADM - The TOGAF® Leader’s Guide to Establishing and Evolving an EA Capability - The TOGAF Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model (III-RM): An Architected Approach to Boundaryless Information Flow™ - Value Streams - Business Scenarios - The TOGAF® Technical Reference Model (TRM) - Using the TOGAF® Framework to Define and Govern Service-Oriented Architectures For 2022, Steve Nunn states that The Open Group will further concentrate the digital portfolio of standards and focus on bringing together various standards, creating a useful portfolio for use in the digital enterprise. Read the full article

[digital-roadmap-management]

12 Must-Dos to Get Business Capabilities Right

I assume that readers of this article already have a first understanding of what a business capability is. If this is not the case, please read this article on what you need to know about business capabilities first. Many organizations start with business capabilities because someone had the idea to use them somehow. Business capabilities are still a relatively new concept and there is little agreement and accepted literature when it comes to the theory of the concept, especially in terms of definitions, development methods, use cases, and standards. Several organizations have tried to establish standards, yet, the scope of their standards ends at the boundaries of their organizations. The results are little available guidance, heterogeneous development results, few success stories, and many sceptic stakeholders. In order to support organizations struggling with developing business capabilities, I have summarized my top 12 lessons learnt that I experienced during the past few years:

1. Understand the Exact Use Cases

Understand your use cases to determine what exactly you need. Business capabilities can support many different use cases, such as alignments of business and IT, across merging companies, or for strategic planning of future budgets and projects. However, do not assume that one can use one business capability map for all! In fact, the business capabilities required for different use cases will be very different in terms of number, level of detail, number of levels, and information and components that should be mapped. - A rationalization approach for an application landscape might for instance need just a few business capabilities and mapped information. Those could be applications, cost information, lifecycle of the underlying technology, and business happiness with the overall outcome. - A demand management approach, on the contrary, might need a large and detailed amount of capabilities. For such a use case, more than 20+ business capabilities can be mapped to a demand. The objective is to decide how many of these are already covered by existing solutions. Information to be mapped might then be scalability, interdependencies etc. - For a merger, you will not need any detailed capabilities, because you must stay on a level that is still comparable across the companies.  

2. Know All Your Stakeholders

Identify all relevant stakeholders for a particular business capability area. If you only work with one department to identify the business capabilities of a particular area, do not expect a holistic business capability map as result. Take the example of pricing. It is not only done by the Marketing Department, but is also impacted by many more areas in the business. The following areas also impact it: - the development and production costs, - strategic aspects from the Strategy Department, - the local sales shops that have to eventually consider transport, import, taxes, temporally and local discounts etc. Similarly, contract management is not only needed when a customer buys a product or service, but also with suppliers, business partners etc. Your organization might eventually be present in different markets and have different divisions that are all a bit different, use different applications, and follow different processes. However, they all pay onto the same stack of business capabilities that in the end represent the business capability map of your company.

3. Understand and Explain the Difference to Processes

Be prepared for tight discussions with “process people”. Many organizations have put a tremendous effort in developing detailed and sophisticated process descriptions for their organizations. Also, process descriptions are often more mature than business capabilities and hence there will always be some strong supporters of processes that do not consider the business capabilities as a viable alternative - at first. It is one of the key success factors of business capabilities to emphasize their benefits over processes, which is why I will briefly mention them here: First, a business capability is always defined and named as common as possible in order to maximize understanding from all kinds of stakeholders. For instance, it must not include company specifics, such as a technology or a particular process step. On the contrary, processes can vary greatly between two different companies and even if their name is the same, the actual content can be very different from each other. Secondly, business capabilities have always three components, which are process, people, and technology. Being the result of several components makes business capabilities more stable over time than its single components, for instance a process. Thirdly, the aim of business capabilities is to provide an exhaustive view of the company without overlaps. They are a theoretical concept that are chosen to minimize the interdependencies across two different capabilities. This makes it possible to analyze them separately. In contrast, processes reflect the actual doing of a company and they are not optimized for independent analysis. With these advantages at hand, it is crucial to also understand the great disadvantage of business capabilities, which is their theoretic nature. In order to benefit from capabilities, an organization needs to have the concept understood and defined for itself – which is challenging without good existing guidelines. This brings us to the fourth lesson to consider.  

4. Communicate the Concept Over and Over

Be well prepared to explain the concept of business capabilities 1,000 times and more to members of your organization – on all different levels. I have spent endless hours of presenting and discussing the concept of business capabilities. A major take away from this was that sharing and being able to reuse the content should have a very high priority. Generally, be prepared to answer questions such as: Why capabilities? How does it help us in our current situation? Why is it better than the last two concepts we tried? Why should we use them? How will you do it? What results do you expect? What’s in it for the executive level? For business? For me? There are endless questions.  

5. Provide Strict Guidance on the Development

Develop and communicate very clear guidance on how the business capability that you expect looks like. If you have already searched for business capability maps of other organizations, you noticed that, depending on the source, the results can differ a lot. Again, this is due to the missing standardization, as even the new TOGAF 9.2 strives new digital topics, such as business capabilities only on a very high level (Update: TOGAF tries to provide some standardization for the topic of business capabilities with its Series Guide: Business Capabilities - which indeed provides one of the best summaries so far). If there is no centrally accepted guidance, every stakeholder will create business capabilities that differ in terms of detail, the dimension, the components considered, and the wording. All those aspects make it challenging to harmonize and compare the results later on. From my experience, explanations cannot be detailed enough to sufficiently define a business capability in a way that people independently come to the same results. Instead, I prefer to provide small examples of how the business capability map should look like in the end. This way, attributes such as detail level, grammar, components, scope etc. become clear and are immediately captured.  

6. Reuse and Lever Existing Inputs

Reuse as much of existing sources as possible – internally and externally. A first business capabilities draft is often much closer to the status quo than theory would suggest. This is not bad at all, as it helps the organization to slowly change its mindset towards a capability-based view. Understand the first version of a business capability map as a starting point that your organization can use. In a next step, consolidate further, identify more capabilities that belong together. Also, identify whether there is still one or the other process in the map that can be transformed. When it comes to internal sources, consider strategy papers, process descriptions, organizational charts, or functionalities of your applications. When it comes to external sources, consider global process standards from APQC or FrameworX. However, be aware that none of these input sources is perfect and each has its advantages and disadvantages. How to get started with modelling business capabilities and which input to take is an important step.  

7. Be Aware of the Disadvantages of the Concept

One of the disadvantages of the sources is that there will be a bias towards one of the components of business capabilities: people, process, or technology. The type of bias will depend on the source you decide for. Obviously, if you use process descriptions to develop a first business capability map draft, the result will somehow be similar. There will be no swim lanes, responsible, or repetitive detailed process steps anymore. However, it will make clear that for instance HR is organized from hire to fire or R&D has capabilities from research to patent lifecycle management. On the other hand, if you start to investigate functionalities of your applications and cluster them logically, there will also be a bias. The result is very likely to have a technology bias, as you went through the systems one after another and considered every technical detail. Lastly, if you start with an organizational chart, you might quickly have your first business capability level at hand. Such a capability map woule include capabilities such as Marketing, Production, and Procurement. However, there is a high risk that you capture too much of your organizational specifics (i.e. people component) that you do not want in your map, such as divisions or regional organizations.

8. Think Long-Term – do not Expect Short-Term Results

Be prepared to not be able to deliver fast results or add value quickly. The biggest risk of the long-term success of business capabilities is that they are a very theoretical. They are a concept that needs time to add value to an organization. As most areas of enterprise architecture, the concepts need to be accepted by many people within the organization. Therefore, data needs to be collected, analyzed, and the implications need to be communicated and again accepted. This all takes time and there is a risk that the added value becomes quickly zero if key stakeholders do not support the idea. Also, top management must understand that the real benefits will be realized in the long-term. There might even be no positive effects in the short-term at all! It is therefore highly important to show the value added by business capabilities whenever possible, especially when there are discussions about the worthiness of the concept.  

9. Look Out for Every Opportunity to Pilot and Showcase

What this means for you is that you must be sensitive to opportunities. Your goal should be to show the value of business capabilities through pilots or showcases. There are enough opportunities if you continuously search for them. Be sensitive to stakeholders that show more interest into your work than others. They might just think alike and understand the real potential behind. Look out for early-on projects that suffer to harmonize a part of the landscape or that miss a clear representation of their strategic way forward. All these situations might provide you with a good chance to show some value of your draft business capability map.  

10. Manage Expectations

In all you do, do not expect to get 100% accurate and final results. Enterprise architects, especially business architects, know that their work never provides a definite answer. However, business might not be used to this. Business architects are used to provide recommendations, directions, or a couple of options. In contrast, business often looks at the definite numbers of the business case. As business capabilities are an enterprise architecture concept, they are conceptualized to provide recommendations across a wide spectrum of questions. They are not made to provide definite answers, as they will always lack some information. Lacking information can be: - more detailed business capability levels, - interdependencies that the concept does not consider, - information that were not captured for the analysis or have changed in the meantime, - and tacit knowledge from domain or solution architects that were not involved.

11. Decide on the Right Tool Based on the Target State and Operating Model

Get tool support to manage updates on the vast amount of data that you will have. There are different options, starting from Excel lists, SharePoint solutions, and all kinds of specialized EA tools, from lean to highly sophisticated. In the end, also the tool must fit to your purpose. However, be aware that developing business capabilities and mapping information to them, as well as using them and displaying the results is an iterative activity that typically takes much more time than initially expected. Therefore, think wisely from the start: How much data sets will you have to manage? How many persons should have access to view and edit data? What kind of visual representation do you expect? How often do you want to allow updates or new releases? What security level is needed for the data? Depending on your answers to those questions, you can derive a first impression of what kind of tool support you need.  

12. Understand the type of capabilities that you need

In this article, I have talked about business capabilities. However, many people confuse those with similar concepts. IT (or technical) capabilities, for instance, have a much stronger focus on technology and solutions that can cut through many different business capabilities and hence cannot be displayed in the same capability map. An example would be the ability to identify spelling errors and duplicated data entries in your master data and perform data cleansing activities. Another type of capabilities that becomes increasingly popular and is regularly confused with business capabilities, are Digital capabilities. The major difference of digital capability maps is that they do not have the goal to describe all aspects of a company, but to solely focus on aspects that are of interest for digitization. Because their use cases differ from those of business capabilities, they are typically more detailed and are all described with only one level.  If you want to understand the use cases of business capabilities and how they can help organizations to transform, read my article “Top 5 Use Cases for Business Capabilities to Transform an Organization”. Read the full article

[digital-roadmap-management]

The EA Tools Market Impact and Opportunities Through Disruption

Today´s content forms the fifth of six parts of the series called “Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture?”. In this series, I provide my view on the footprint of today´s Enterprise Architecture, the potential death of the role of an Enterprise Architect, the big players, such as TOGAF from The Open Group, AWS, or Azure, as well as the role of EA tool providers and other related certificates and developments on the market. In today´s part five, we consider the role of Enterprise Architecture tool providers in developing new best practices for their area. We also try to understand what that implies for the future. Regardless of whether you are reading this article or whether you are listening to the podcast version, make sure to also check out the other parts of the series as soon as they are available!

Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture? – Part 5 of 6

New tool functionalities enable new best practices In the last part of this series, we discussed best practices emerging from prominent cloud providers, as well as from organizations developing new frameworks and operating models not specific to Enterprise Architecture. Today, we focus on the role of EA tool providers in modernizing Enterprise Architecture. A quick research confirms the initial impression. EA tool providers focus on leaner functionalities, but also include new use cases. For instance, such use cases allow architects to capture data in real-time and to run different complex scenarios – strengthening EA´s capability to support decision-making and business planning. An example would be LeanIX, which has a functionality that automatically suggests suitable business capabilities for newly added applications. It also provides individual user dashboards that help to keep track of daily tasks, decision points etc. Also, capabilities to design complex models and to automate large parts of the model help to increase the depth and width beyond traditional EA activities. Examples include external partners, releases, and support cycles. Several EA tool providers increasingly provide APIs to easily and regularly import third-party data. EA Tool providers aim for communities, networking, and owning ecosystems Interestingly, new impulses are driven by EA tool providers that understand themselves rather as part of a larger ecosystem, instead of being a service provider for stand-alone software. Also, those tool providers seem to be more active when it comes to networking and interaction with customers in terms of blogging, organizing webinars, and inviting to events. Along with those activities, they sometimes also provide own definitions and explanations of EA terms and maintain own Q&A pages for business-related questions. All those activities strengthen not only the sense of belonging, but also foster best practices among those communities. Is the EA Tooling market being disrupted? Market disruption happens where there is a new technology emerging that is much more efficient or that provides a much higher value for the customer than the currently used technology. In our case, such technologies could be AI, machine learning, process mining, robotic process automation etc. All those technologies could help to manage an Enterprise Architecture more efficiently and also create more value for an organization. Usually, such new technologies are brought into the market by new market players. Some market players implement them into their offering, while others do not. As a result, the market becomes more heterogeneous and more diverse. Is there a high heterogeneity on the current EA tools landscape? On the one hand, Gartner´s Magic Quadrants seem to always review the same set of tool providers and there seems to be little movement. On the other hand, there are quite some organizations which are currently moving away from one tool towards another. That implies that there are differentiating factors between the available tools. There are also tools which are either clearly traditionally designed and those, which support more agile approaches. In terms of the disrupting technologies mentioned above, there also seem to be quite different adoption levels across the landscape. All in all, I believe it is likely that we see some further disruptions, market share changes, and consolidations in the upcoming years. Read the full article

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Who Drives Modern EA Best Practices and Content?

Today´s content forms the fourth of six parts of the series called “Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture?”. In this series, I provide my view on the footprint of today´s Enterprise Architecture, the potential death of the role of an Enterprise Architect, the big players, such as TOGAF from The Open Group, AWS, or Azure, as well as the role of EA tool providers and other related certificates and developments on the market. In today´s part four, I address that the trainings provided by different cloud organizations incorporate important IT and Enterprise Architecture aspects. In addition, modern, agile frameworks cover management aspects of Enterprise Architecture. Regardless of whether you are reading this article or whether you are listening to the podcast version, make sure to also check out the other parts of the series as soon as they are available!

Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture? – Part 4 of 6

EA Best Practices are also Driven by Training Offers from Cloud Organizations

In the last part, we argued that IT and Enterprise Architecture has a high importance for modern cloud providers and cloud organizations. Consequently, the role of the cloud solution architect is one of the most important ones for AWS, Azure, and GCP. As a result, the curricula to gain the certificates for such roles focus not only on cloud and IT architecture aspects, but also incorporate Enterprise Architecture elements. Such elements include: - general subscription management, - cloud cost management, - hybrid- or multi-cloud management, - and data flows / interfaces with non-cloud systems.

Agile Frameworks Provide Best Practices for the Management Aspect of EAM

As a result, technical and architectural best practices are mainly driven by cloud providers and cloud organizations. However, there are more important aspects to consider. Those include: - EA roles, - responsibilities, - committees, - and decision-making processes. Such aspects are covered by modern alternatives to traditional Architecture Design Authorities or Architecture Governance Boards. They are provided by multiple agile frameworks whose goal is the establishment of agile processes across whole departments and organizations. One prominent example of a scaled agile framework is SAFe. It defines the role of an Enterprise Architect, placing it on its Lean Portfolio Management layer. However, not only SAFe, but also other frameworks provide solutions to modernize orgnizations and processes. Another example is Disciplined Agile or the Spotify Model. For instance, they propose guilds that work as a network or community of people that span across organizational hierarchies and departments. If you want to learn more about the benefits of communities in the EA area, check out the article on it. What´s your take on today´s part of the series? Happy to read your comments below! Read the full article

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New Sources for Enterprise Architecture Frameworks Emerge

Today´s content forms the third of six parts of the series called “Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture?”. In this series, I provide my view on the footprint of today´s Enterprise Architecture, the potential death of the role of an Enterprise Architect, the big players, such as TOGAF from The Open Group, AWS, or Azure, as well as the role of EA tool providers and other related certificates and developments on the market. In today´s part three, I take a broader look at organizations, frameworks, and models that are relevant for Enterprise Architecture. Specifically, we consider the cloud area, and conclude that a significant part of today´s EA best practices are developed by cloud organizations and providers.  Regardless of whether you are reading this article or whether you are listening to the podcast version, make sure to also check out the other parts of the series as soon as they are available!

Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture? – Part 3 of 6

There are two different types of organizations that are relevant for Enterprise Architecture. - Some organizations, such as The Open Group and Bizzdesign have a full focus on that topic. - In addition, there are new market players that also develop Enterprise Architecture frameworks, but do not purely focus on this topic.

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) is an Important Player

An example for the second category is the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). It´s founding companies include Google, Docker, Red Hat, Twitter, and IBM. It has the objective to be a vendor-neutral home for many of the fastest-growing open-source projects, fostering collaboration between developers, end users, and vendors. Hence, their main goal is to provide a platform for open-source projects to collaborate and develop further. As part of this, however, they also continuously develop a suitable ecosystem. Nowadays, CNCF also offers trainings and certifications for tools and technologies that help to manage whole landscapes of cloud native applications (e.g., microservices) easily and effectively (e.g., Service Mesh, Kubernetes). While there is no doubt that such solutions are a suitable expansion of their portfolio, they are located at the core of what Enterprise Architecture is about.

Hyperscalers such as AWS, Azure, and GCP are also Developing Best Practices

Like CNCF, the large cloud providers developed best practices that are becoming industry standards for how to manage cloud architectures. For instance, AWS first provided the AWS Well-Architected Framework in 2018, which includes five pillars as well as a set of design principles for designing and architecting cloud environments. End of 2020, MS Azure also released their version of a Well-Architected Framework. Both frameworks build on the same five pillars. This makes them very likely to become standard across the whole industry. Although those pillars mainly focus on IT Architecture, they also impact Enterprise Architecture activities. Besides the Well-Architected Framework, the beforementioned cloud providers also offer a large set of reference architectures. They are similar, but more modern, compared to the boundaryless information flow or the integrated information infrastructure reference model from the TOGAF standard. Finally, the MS Azure cloud adoption framework or similar models are likely to replace the Architecture Development Method from TOGAF. As cloud is continuously becoming more important and both frameworks follow a similar concept, I believe that this development will continue. What is your opinion on the role of cloud organizations and providers for the development of Enterprise Architecture best practices? Do you agree or disagree with my reasoning? I am looking forward to your comments in the comments section below! Read the full article

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New Enterprise Architecture Terms and Certificates Emerge

Today´s content forms the second of six parts of the series called “Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture in 2021?”. In this series, I provide my view on the footprint of today´s Enterprise Architecture, the potential death of the role of an Enterprise Architect, the big players, such as TOGAF from The Open Group, AWS, or Azure, as well as the role of EA tool providers and other related certificates and developments on the market. In today´s part two, I take a deeper look at the Google Trends analysis from part one and I also investigate a bit deeper on the certification landscape of The Open Group. Both confirms that, although many Enterprise Architecture terms become less important, the actual content stays up to date. Regardless of whether you are reading this article or whether you are listening to the podcast version on my website, make sure to also check out the other parts of the series as soon as they are available!

Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture in 2021? – Part 2 of 6

Part one of this series ended with some questions of whether EA is dead – based on a couple of different findings. Part two is opposing this opinion. One main argument came from the results from Google Trends, which show a clearly decreasing interest for some key EA search terms. To put this in context, it is vital to understand that there has been a shift of Google searches away from general terms. The general management of architecture layers are an example of such generic terms. Nowadays, more specific topics and concepts of Enterprise and IT Architecture are of interest.

High Demand for Particular Enterprise Architecture Terms

Figure 2 shows again the amount of search requests for the term “Enterprise Architecture” in blue. This time, it is compared to the terms “Master data”, “Scaled agile framework”, “Cloud Native Computing Foundation”, and “Microservices”. While those key words are clearly associated with the area of EA as well, they show strongly growing search volumes over the past years. Interestingly, the more specific subtopics are, the more they outperform the more general terms. For instance, “Microservices”, which is a subset of the application landscape, has a higher search volume. Also, “Master data”, which is a subset of data management, outperforms the search volume of “Enterprise Architecture” in general.

Figure 2 In other words, the insights from Google Trends suggest the following: Generic EA terms decrease in interest, while more specific search terms - also at the heart of EA - increase in interest.

The New TOGAF Strategy

The second main argument from part one is that the TOGAF standard is not being renewed well enough to answer the questions that organizations in the digital era have. Surprisingly, lowering the importance of TOGAF might even be part of The Open Group strategy. In doing so, they leave room to strengthen the market presence of newly developed products and guides. Examples are the Digital Practitioner Guide, the TOGAF Business Architecture guide, and the series guides. In addition, The Open Group established several new certificates. Some of them cover new topics, but some of them also cover what one would expect to be part of the TOGAF standard. Taking such content out of the TOGAF standard suggests that The Open Group´s strategy is to achieve a certification diversification with less focus on TOGAF alone. In the extreme case, it could also imply that the term “TOGAF” as a certification could slowly vanish. Meanwhile, the content would move towards more and new certifications that sound modern and more adequate nowadays. The TOGAF Standard, however, would not receive notable updates anymore. If you want to learn more about that, make sure to check the links to my other articles provided below. Also, thank you very much for your positive feedback and comments to the first part of this series. Do you agree or disagree with the main arguments in this second part? Happy to continue the discussion in the comments section below! Read the full article

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What is Today´s Relevance of an Enterprise Architecture Practice?

Today´s content forms the first of six parts of the series called “Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture in 2021?”. In this series, I provide my view on - the footprint of today´s Enterprise Architecture, - the potential death of the role of an Enterprise Architect, - the big players, such as TOGAF from The Open Group, AWS, or Azure, - as well as the role of EA tool providers and - other related certificates and developments on the market. In today´s part one, I analyze the search term attention for common Enterprise Architecture terms on Google Trends. I highlight the origins of today´s most important EA frameworks, TOGAF and Zachman, and share my results on job searches. I deduce that Enterprise Architecture might be a dead practice.   Regardless of whether you are reading this article or whether you are listening to the podcast version, make sure to also check out the other parts of the series as soon as they are available!

Who is still interested in Enterprise Architecture in 2021? – Part 1 of 6

It seems that, especially in modern tech companies, the importance of the Enterprise Architecture (EA) practice is decreasing. Some organizations might even consider it an irrelevant practice. In the following, we analyze where such opinions emerge from. In the later parts of this series, we will provide arguments against that reasoning and provide an analysis, which underpins that this is not the end of Enterprise Architecture as a practice. However, Enterprise Architecture will go through a transformation towards an adapted set of activities, new priorities, and new required skills.

Traditional Enterprise Architecture Terms, Roles, and Frameworks Become Irrelevant

The attention for EA seems to steadily decrease: According to figure 1, which shows an extract from Google Trends, the number of search requests for the topic cluster “Enterprise Architecture” has declined by more than 50% since 2016 and by over 75% since 2004. In addition, figure 1 shows the relative amount of search requests for related EA terms, such as “Business Architecture”, “Application Lifecycle Management”, “Data Management”, and “Technology Management” in the years 2004 to 2021. All of them show a decreasing attention over time.  

Figure 1 In addition, there are much less EA blogs and websites compared to a few decades ago. Due to the lack of updates, a lot of outdated EA content on best practices is still relatively high ranked by search engines.

TOGAF and Zachman Became Outdated

Further evidence comes from the most important industry standard frameworks, such as TOGAF and Zachman. TOGAF has first been published in 1995. It was developed by several member firms of The Open Group, including major players such as IBM or Oracle. The TOGAF Standard is updated every few years with the latest release being version 9.2 in April 2018. Although the latest version aims at better targeting the topic of Digital Transformation, the overall content has not changed much. In addition, certified practitioners do not need to update their certification between minor releases and the current main release went live in 2011. In the era of continuous Digital disruptions, a decade old content cannot be fully relevant anymore. The second most important framework is the Zachman framework. With the initial release in 1987 and the latest major release in 2011, it has the same age as TOGAF. As a result, we can say that the most important Enterprise Architecture frameworks have not received any major updates in the last decade and are therefore - at least in parts - outdated.

Many Big Tech Companies Don´t Search For Enterprise Architects

Apart from the arguments above, there is an additional observation, which is common across many different organizations: The more old-world / legacy IT an organization has, the more important the Enterprise Architects in the organization are. Similarly, in organizations with old and new world IT, Enterprise Architects are responsible for managing the architecture of the old world. However, they have only little influence on the development of the new world IT; the digital area. If they interfere (e.g., try to align things), they are often perceived as slowing-down the process and as being an impediment or a threat to the project success. Although there are surely exceptions to this, there is a clear pattern that companies with little or no legacy IT do not have the role of an Enterprise Architect and do not look for such positions for their organizations. Job searches for “enterprise architect” at Netflix or Amazon seem to confirm this trend. Does this mean that enterprise architecture is dead? Is there still any relevancy for enterprise architecture in 2021? What role does it play in today´s digital age? In the next parts of this series, we will answer these questions. Did you like this part of the series “On the Relevance of Enterprise Architecture”? Can you confirm the observations and analysis, or do you disagree? Happy to hear what you think! Read the full article

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We Are a Top Enterprise Architecture Podcast According to Threat.Technology

According to a recent publication from Threat.Technology, digitalroadmap.management is proudly ranked as one of the top 20 enterprise architecture podcast websites, among LeanIX and BiZZdesign.

As I started the digitalroadmap.management blog back in 2018 as a hobby, I wanted to share my insights and opinions on digitalization topics, IT architecture, and IT technologies. Since then, I have published more than 75 blog articles, and have an increasing number of followers and visitors every month. I am very pleased with the growth and development of the blog content areas, and am thankful for the attention and support digitalroadmap.management gets from the visitors and contributors to further shape up and grow.

As an attentive follower, you might have noticed that since the beginning of 2021, I started to produce short podcast episodes for the most popular blog articles, which are predominantly around the topic of enterprise architecture. As of today, there are 11 episodes of my podcast, and there will be new episodes coming in the future!

If you are interested in topics around digital, IT architecture or innovation, please subscribe to my podcast on Apple Podcasts, Listen Notes, or by using the RSS feed.

If you want to explore the other podcasts on enterprise architecture, you can find them on the blog post of threat.technology.