Enterprise Architecture
I did some study on TOGAF framework for my Open Group TOGAF 9.1 Certification Exam.
With this occasion, I took some time to think about it and came up with some opinions and ideas. Some of these could be found below.
I think there are some challenges on implementing it within enterprises:
1. The technique to trim it down to a specific enterprise as needed in order to be easy to use within the enterprise - this also pertains to the key people and processes - think of it as a custom tailoring of the TOGAF framework for the enterprise it you will. All this would require a significant amount of experience from the person driving this effort. One could say that the activity to understand the specific business organization (not only processes but people and relationships) and to tailor the framework accordingly is also an art.
2. Triggering these kinds of changes within enterprises will always be challenging. That is, change, support and trigger the transformations within the enterprises in order to establish the enterprise architecture capabilities.
3. My opinion remains that - and this is not something I read during my study - one must tailor and apply the TOGAF framework in an agile way. The enterprise architecture capability and its processes should be designed with agility in mind, even for large enterprises. Creating large amount of documentation, difficult to read and understand - much less to apply, as well as having complicated and time consuming architecture requirements management and governance processes is not going to help too much in this area. I think that these enterprise capabilities should ensure that the IT supporting the enterprises is aligned to the business vision and requirements - but they need to do so in an agile way.
So, is TOGAF useful? I think very much so. But in the end it's just a framework with a vision - the real challenge will rest on the shoulders of people that are going to apply it - as always, an idea (strategy) however great remains an idea if you do not have the right people to understand it and execute on it ;)
Have fun
