One of the key challenges in the actual implementation of EA is the multiplicity of methods used in the Enterprise. After all, enterprises rarely rely on a single methodology for transformation efforts, architecture development, or IT service management. TOGAF alludes to this in laying out how to establish an EA practice, but it doesn’t provide granular guidance. So this article will address this “beyond architecture certification” necessity.

• Organizations often use a blend of TOGAF, SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), ITIL (IT Service Management), COBIT (Governance & Compliance), Lean, and other industry-specific frameworks. In addition to those methods come also a variety of modelling languages like Archimate, BPMN and UML (ERD).
• Different business units or departments may favor different approaches, creating inconsistencies in architecture execution and decision-making, duplication of work and additional complexity making collaboration between various stakeholders even more challenging.
• A number of scaling factors and their impact on ADM should be assessed by EAs in the process of methods customization or configuration depending on the context of strategy driven transformation, portfolio management, project or solution development.

How scaling factors impact ADM tailoring, configuration and execution.

• By tailoring TOGAF ADM execution to these scaling factors, organizations can adapt architecture processes and decision-making to match their size, complexity, regulatory and business environment, methods in use, emerging technologies, and maturity of business capabilities to ensure effective business-IT alignment and smarter investment decisions in enterprise transformation efforts and portfolio management.

Possible impact on ADM execution.

Authored by Alex Wyka, EA Principals Senior Consultant and Principal