Thursday 5 February 2009

Modelling time sequence dependancies in EA modelling tools - Smart421’s Staff Weblog

Considering the target audience for EA modelling tools it does strike me as odd that modelling 'time' has been largely forgotten. In the post below the author discuss 'what if' scenarios but frankly even in basic TOGAF terms you have to build a baseline and target view - how can this most basic of requirements have been missed? Using the tool available to me my option appears to be to have two models and rely on copy and paste.

Modelling time sequence dependancies in EA modelling tools - Smart421’s Staff Weblog

TOGAF 9 - First impressions

Firstly I'll introduce myself to give some perspective to this post. I'm fairly new to TOGAF, I was already reading 8.1.1 and felt I had a reasonable grasp of the content. I am in the process of writing a summary up for my colleagues. I am not TOGAF certified at this time.

So TOGAF 9 was released recently and I got hold of the PDF copy yesterday (finally a use for my Sony e-book reader). On first look the document is far better organised than 8.1.1 and there is more content.

Much of the content is the same, however the there are some useful additions. Of most value is the new Architecture Content Framework section, and chapter 35 within there. This gives a great deal more insight into the types of views, viewpoints and artefacts that are useful at different stages of building the architecture. This was at best alluded to in the previous document and the absence of useful discussion on the subject was one of my principle criticisms. Section 35.6 offers a taxonomy and as such is a good overview of the topic.

I would particularly draw attention to the section on stake holder management (chapter 24) which serves as at least a good introduction to the subject and provides some useful, if common tools. In my opinion this is a key capability of an Architect at any level and deserves more discussion than was given in 8.1.1.

In short, far far better organised and with some great additional content - well worth the time and money investment even if you're familiar with TOGAF 8.1.1.

Thumbs up.

Mike Walker gives a useful view in this blog post

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Updated: Added links to the opengroup website for the relevant sections