| By Serge Thorn |
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| April 21, 2009 04:51 AM EDT |
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Quite often as an Enterprise Architects we are asked to show what the deliverables of an Enterprise Architecture program are.
TOGAF provides a methodology for analyzing your specific situation and turning that analysis into deliverables and actionable artifacts. Artifacts may have different shapes as defined in TOGAF 9. They may be: Catalogs, matrices or diagrams. EA artifacts may also help to define a standard set of document types such as education, strategy, decision, policy, standard, guideline, etc. It is also recommended that you set up a simple online discussion thread or wiki for each artifact to solicit feedback from artifact consumers.
Enterprise Architects should ensure that their efforts to create architecture documentation produce meaningful results by creating artifacts that connect with the consumer, drive decisions, and will allow the development of reusable building blocks.
If we consider the various architecture domains, they may have different forms.
As examples-
in Business Architecture, they could be the views of the Business stakeholders. The matrices between business strategy and the main business functions. The diagrams showing the relationship between processes and information. The Value Chains. Business and Operating models of the Enterprise. Customizing the configuration of the Business Functions according to model --- and more.
The artifacts for Data or Information architecture may refer to an information map or diagram . It could also show the mapping between data items and the Business Information map.
Artifacts for Application Architecture, could show the key interconnections between applications, middleware connection matrices. There may also exists views for Portal Architecture, Enterprise Content Management , Identity management, Business Intelligence, ERPs and CRMs.
Last but not least, Technology Architecture artifacts may propose servers and storage technology diagrams, office views (file, printing, data base servers, etc...), LAN/WAN/Voice Network architecture diagrams, applications and interconnections mapping to technology servers and networks, infrastructure security diagrams. In addition to that, there may be a certain numbers of artifacts related to the company’s organization, organization chart, lines of business mapping to business functions, organization roles in organization units and job descriptions.
Many graphical tools may aid to develop diagrams or document matrices but may also be quite costly. The use of spreadsheet may be a first step in building artifacts such as matrices. The following examples illustrate how they may simply be build with Excel.
List of Metadata
Data-Business process matrix
Application Inventory List
These are very basic example of what artifacts may look like. They may rapidly be created and are definitely a way to explain to the EA stakeholders how the first deliverables of our baseline architecture looks like.
Serge Thorn is currently developing and delivering new Enterprise Architecture consultancy and training services, implementing Governance and managing IT Operations.
Before he was in charge of International Governance and Control, implementing different best practices around IT Finance/Procurement, Audit/Risk management, Vendors Management (with Service Level Management) in a Bank.
Previously Serge worked in a Pharma in charge of the Enterprise Architecture worldwide program and Governance, the IT Research & Innovation, following the reorganization of the IT Department, implementing Service Management based on ITIL Best Practices and deploying new processes: Change, Configuration, Release, and Capacity/Availability Management, responsible for the Disaster Recovery Plan and for the System Management team.
Prior to this, he was responsible for the Architecture team in an international bank, and has wide experience in the deployment and management of information systems in Private Banking and Wealth Management environments, and also in the IT architectures domains, Internet, dealing rooms, inter-banking networks, Middle and Back-office. He also has been into ERP and CRM domains.
Serge's main competencies cover the perfect understanding of banking activities, and industry, the design of new systems, IT strategies, IT Governance and Control, Innovation, new technologies, Enterprise Architecture (including BPM and TOGAF 9), Service Management (ITIL V 3), Quality System ISO 9001:2000, team management, project and portfolio management (PMI), IT Finance, organization and planning.
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