Building a case for an Agile Enterprise Architecture Process – Part 2

This series of papers considers the case for enhancing the good work the Open Group contributors have already produced in TOGAF 8.1 [1], by defining an lean and mean Enterprise Architecture (EA) Practice Process that can be picked up and used with minimal tailoring to get an EA Practice started quickly. Enterprise Architects starting a new practice say “There is so much to do and so much complexity. Where do we start? How do we move forward in a structured and well defined way, but still add value to the organisation quickly?” The goal of this second paper is to suggest using existing standards to drive out solutions to the problems EA Practices face (as posed in the previous Part 1 paper). To suggest a set of standards upon which an Agile Enterprise Architecture Process could be more specifically defined. Processes to help Enterprise Architects get started quickly and easily. Enhancements to the TOGAF process are to be based primarily on the newer and beneficial thinking Agile and Adaptive [10] principles, but on other influences as well. Context of Enterprise Architecture within the organization As the name implies, Enterprise Architecture looks after the Architecture for the whole Enterprise. It looks at the big picture, not just a single project view. Enterprise Architecture includes Business Architecture, Information Services Architecture and Technology Infrastructure Architecture. In an enterprise, any extremely successful Project (development or COTS integration) could add or change some sub-set of all the business systems, software and technology architecture in the enterprise. See diagram Figure 1 Enterprise Architecture for a simple representation of this concept. Even though any one Project may deliver the best and most reliable Product set for the particular purpose, it may harm the overall Enterprise Architecture. For example a new project may conflict with some existing business processes, add a new vendor database product into the mix or add another application server instead of using the existing one. This could turn out to be very costly to support and manage in the longer term. Figure 1 Enterprise Architecture within the organization