Architecting the Family: TOGAF® & Major IT Frameworks

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Organizations need a concerted approach to change. This is where enterprise architecture and TOGAF comes in. Enterprise architecture is at the heart of change, providing a set of tools and techniques that make the strategy concrete, showing employees what is really expected from them and architecting the Family guiding the necessary changes. The alignment of enterprise architecture with other processes is essential to ensure successful change.

Frameworks such as TOGAF®, PRINCE2®, ITIL® and COBIT® provide guidance in identifying and executing the relevant processes. TOGAF is the best-practice framework for enterprise architecture, consisting of a step-by-step development method and a set of guidelines. The other frameworks address project management, IT service management and governance.

Getting the ‘Family’ to Communicate

These frameworks are all popular and used within a large number of organizations. In practice, people using these frameworks operate in a fairly isolated manner, as the frameworks are targeted at specific audiences: Architects use TOGAF, management uses COBIT, project managers use PRINCE2 and IT service managers use ITIL. There is, therefore, a risk that these disciplines act in isolation, leading to process inefficiencies, communication problems and collaboration issues. This should be prevented as much as possible. There is a need to link all these frameworks and the people involved. We really need an architecture for the family of frameworks.

White Paper

The starting point for the architecture of IT frameworks is a common process model that shows the relationship between the processes involved. COBIT provides a good starting point for this since it already provides an overview of relevant processes and the information flows between them. A more thorough understanding requires looking at the commonalities and differences and positioning the various frameworks. This is further described in the white paper “TOGAF & Major IT Frameworks, Architecting the Family”. It provides an overview of enterprise architecture and TOGAF, and how they relate to COBIT, PRINCE2 and ITIL. It also elaborates on why enterprise architecture and TOGAF should play a pivotal role in organizations.

More information on the TOGAF courses is available in the ITpreneurs Course Catalog.

Need more information? Please contact ITpreneurs.

About the author

Danny Greefhorst
Director at ArchiXL, Principal Consultant, Enterprise Architect, Data Management Professional and Critical Thinker

An experienced consultant with strong analytical and communication skills, operating at strategic and tactical levels. Danny has experience in various roles ranging from IT consultant, data management consultant to enterprise architect. His focus is on information architecture, data quality and the link to the business and processes, but he is also knowledgeable on technology architecture and developments. Danny has twenty-five years of IT experience, especially in the financial services and public sectors. He regularly publishes on IT related topics in popular magazines and is also active in the architecture community. Danny is chairman of the governing board of “Via Nova Architectura”; an e-magazine on digital architecture. He is also chairman of the architecture section of the Dutch Computing Association (KNVI). He is the main author of the book “Architecture Principles – The Cornerstones of Enterprise Architecture” and co-author of the book “Ruimte voor mens en organisatie – visie en aanpak voor de digitale samenleving”.

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