Hi Alex, Thanks for stopping by to comment. Couldn't agree with you more. It's a great "canvas" to explore existing and new ideas in a structured but also flexible way. Like you, I tie this information to model so it can highlight gaps and opportunities. As you said, this opens up their eyes to an architectural way of thinking. Again, thanks for taking the time to comment.

Hi Clay, The Open CA Im referring to is an Open Certified Architect certification not a PKI certification. Sorry for the confusion.

IMO your close. I would still think that the Business Architecture phase stays as is. The collection, classification and the management of the requirements happen in the center, however the distillation of those I believe would happen in the Business Architecture phase. I think these are two discrete activities.

Hi Mike, Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback. This also feel through the cracks due to the other lively debates (on the TOGAF Demystified Series) that were occurring as well. I would say it all depends on what you define as requirements. Most people think of requirements as at the project or program level detailing out specifics for a solution. If we are talking about those, then I would say no. If we are talking about requirements simply as, "something the business needs" then I would say yes. This is also how TOGAF describes requirements in the middle of the crop circle. From TOGAF: "The first high-level requirements are articulated as part of the Architecture Vision, generated by means of the business scenario or analogous technique... Moreover, architecture often deals with drivers and constraints, many of which by their very nature are beyond the control of the enterprise (changing market conditions, new legislation, etc.), and which can produce changes in requirements in an unforeseen manner." I agree with the TOGAF position on requirements. But I am conflicted with the actual term used as it causes so much confusion. Thanks again! Mike

@Adrian Grigoriu: I'm really sorry if you have felt that you are being criticized. That isn't the intention nor what I was trying to communicate. This dialog from my perspective is a process in which we can have an objective and fact based discussion. After re-reading my responses I have very little opinion in them. Most of the responses are hard facts, lots of references and links. But when I read your responses it seems as if those points are ignored or openly dismissed without a direct response. You keep mentioning the same point about the Open Group / TOGAF doesn't reach out to you to get your opinion or reference your work. The debate can't go on because the way you want things to work isn't realistic in a system based on member organization building the standard. Again myself and members of the Open Group have reiterated that. This also isn't a special Open Group thing either. All/most standards setting bodies operate in this way from tech field (OMG, IEEE, ISO, W3C, etc.) to industry based ones (SWIFT, IFX, ACORD, etc.) I do take offense to the comment about being Ivory Tower-ish. I have been very factual, objective, in times agreed with you on your positions. I have also welcomed you arms wide open into the community (call to action) to help bring your ideas in and even offering my own time to propose your materials to the TOGAF forum if you can't be a member. Let's just say that we agree that we disagree.

Thanks for your input Len!

@Adrian Grigoriu: You asked the following: I wonder, why do you speak for the Open Group though? Have your posts been sanctioned by it? Do you think you are doing them a service? Im not sure why you are asking but no I am not sanctioned by the Open Group nor do I feel that I owe any specific outside EA organization (including the Open Group) anything. I am expressing my views and my views alone. My motivation is to better the industry in the ways that I can. In this case sharing the knowledge that I have and dispelling the myths out in the industry. I have absolutely no personal gain by these posts outside the satisfaction of educating the community. @Len addressed some of your challenges so Im not going to comment on those items. WRT item #2: I dont quite get where you are going with this one. I think you misunderstand the list. The purpose was to reflect how other standards setting bodies operate. Not to illustrate some sort of relationship. WRT item #3: Not sure why it really matters in the grand scheme of things. As others have commented, we are locked in a conference room for many hours on end. No cocktails w/ umbrellas nor relaxing. Its a lot of work. So not sure why location is an issue anyways. It clear that you dont like TOGAF and it isnt up to your personal quality bar. I respect that you feel that way, however, lets be respectful of all the hard work that the EA community has done to evolve it. I keep saying this and not going to keep repeating it, the Open Group doesnt build TOGAF. So if you have a gripe with the Open Group dont take on the member companies and specific individual within them. You also miss the fact that standards bodies dont operate in the manner you personally want them to. Do the research you will find out. I challenge you to be productive here and do whats best for the industry as a whole and not for yourself. Again, you have spent a lot of time and energy dismissing TOGAF and you have some very specific ideas on how to make it better, make it happen. You are complaining about something that you can change. I challenge you to redirect your energy to do something about it. If you have all these great models and tweaks you can make then put your money where your mouth is and donate your time and content that will be a positive impact instead of dismissing an organization that is trying to make a difference in the EA community. There are really no excuses outside of membership. If you cant afford a membership, my offer before still stands.

@Tom Graves: Thanks for the comments. These are great. You most certainly have a perspective that I dont have. Running your own EA consultancy of a few people just hasnt been my experience. Its been more of the big evil corporations and IT vendors. :) The pay to play concept is tough for some very eager individuals or companies that want to participate. I know I personally ran into that when Microsoft wasnt a member of the Open Group. Even though Microsoft is a huge company with many resources it was tough. In my case I had to run it up the flag pole for justification, go through legal departments, get product groups to OK it and deal with the internal politics around the membership. This took several months of my own personal time and crediability. For small companies with a low budget I could see how it could also be a show stopper. I can most certainly see how this could be frustrating. I see that you brought up two challenges: 1. The Open Group not being open due to it pay to play terms 2. Affordability for small businesses and consultancies to The first one, pay to play -- this seems to be the typical arrangement for most if not all standards bodies. I think ISO says it best: Each ISO member accepts to pay a fair share of the costs to maintain the ISO infrastructure, including the ISO Central Secretariat. This is done through the payment of membership fees. Full members, correspondent members and subscriber members each pay a different level of membership fee. The philosophy behind the calculation is to achieve an equitable and fair fee for all members. Below are a few but most all have the same policy: - http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_membership_manual_2012.pdf - http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/join/join_dues.html - http://www.omg.org/memberservices/feestructure.htm - www.acord.org/webfiles/files/FISC_ACORD_Report.pdf The second one around affordability I did some digging. After looking at the Open Groups membership terms I think you will be surprised as I was. For membership to influence TOGAF looks to be really affordable. The pricing is based on annual revenue. You can find more details here: http://www.opengroup.org/getinvolved/becomeamember/goldsilver?tab=2 For a Silver membership which would all that would be required to join the Architecture Forum where TOGAF is created will cost the following if you annual revenue was $25m OR €20m: $2,500 / €2,000 That would apply to an entire company.

@DaveHornford Thanks so much for commenting and providing these resources. I tend to agree with you on this. Its more than just about mapping these frameworks but really understanding the value of what these resources bring back. I started to talk about it early in the post and then simply referred to them as mapping documents. If you could post the links to these I will make sure they get in the main post from the comments section. Thanks again!

@AdrianGrigoriu : Thanks for taking the time to comment. I can't say that I agree with most of your feedback but I do thank you for establishing the conversation. To be perfectly honest I find a great deal of the feedback to be extremely high-level, abstract, uninformed and conjecture. To my point in the post, if folks don't like TOGAF.... Why are you not participating in making it better. You have written a number of articles about why TOGAF Sucks, I challenge you to focus your efforts and make the standard better. Take the time and energy spent talking about why it is wrong and be proactive to really move the needle forward for our industry. With all the bashing out there it just creates more fragmentation of our profession. This is not good for any of us. Every point you made below you have the ability to influence. If it comes down to your company wont sponsor membership, I'll partner with you to propose your feedback into the Architecture Forum for consideration and provide you full attribution. Just let me know how I can help. ------------ Feedback on your comments ------------- "People usually, prefer to use the frameworks coming from reputed firms or open fora because they believe that there are less chances to suck. And they would readily adopt them because not everybody wants to define own EA and its framework, again and again. They just need to deliver EA not to re-invent it." [Mike Walker] Agree, that's what standards bodies are for. They should take the collective wisdom of the industry and still it down to reusable framework, method, components, etc. This is no different than any other industry known to man. "Besides people claim they do TOGAF because employers demand it now. And TOGAF does not easily vanish because it makes profit for too many today." [Mike Walker] I'm not convinced that employers are demanding TOGAF. I think that is a strong position. What I do believe is that EA organizations have standardized on some EA framework. That part could be a mandate, and frankly that's a good thing (whether that is TOGAF or something else). As far as TOGAF is concerned, like you said above, if I am a business person I will go to the standards bodies first. No need to re-invent what the industry has already defined. That's just good business sense. "TOGAF has not acknowledged or integrated frameworks like Zachman, concepts like business and operating models... So much about its openness to change." [Mike Walker] This is clearly not true. I will reiterate my position in this post. Do the research, it's a simple google search to find, on the Open Group website these mappings. See below: Zachman - http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/0210can/togaf8/doc-review/togaf8cr/c/p4/zf/zf_mapping.htm SABSA - http://www.opengroup.org/news/press/open-group-issues-guide-integrating-togaf®-sabsa®-secure-architecture-methodology DODAF - http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/7699939899/toc.pdf COBIT - Part 1: https://store.opengroup.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=81&osCsid=g5lafh396o3m26l01sdjkf41e0 Part 2: https://store.opengroup.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=82 TMForum Framworx - http://blog.opengroup.org/2011/05/06/exploring-synergies-between-togaf®-and-frameworx/ C4ISR Architecture Framework - http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html CORBA - http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP) - http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html Federal Enterprise Architecture: Practical Guide - http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html FEAF - http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html ISO/IEC TR 14252 (IEEE Std 1003.0) - http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html NCR Enterprise Architecture Framework - http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html ISO RM-ODP - http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html SPIRIT Platform Blueprint Issue 3.0 - http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html TAFIM - http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html TEAF - http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html "TOGAF ADM is a solution rather than EA development process. It just tell us the phases of a process that those with experience know better. That's why it talks endlessly about requirements rather than strategy, roadmaps... and business or operating models for that matter. " [Mike Walker] I don't follow this at all. You will have to explain this a better to help me understand why you don't think the TOGAF is an EA process. Your can orchestrate the ADM in the context of building a strategy. I've done this many times in partnership with business leadership. You can also find guidance for this as well. So I don't buy this at all. With your second statement around the references to strategy, I would take another look. Strategy is referenced throughout the ADM. Specifically in the places you would expect, Preliminary, Vision and Business Architecture. Quoted directly from the first chapter of TOGAF: "The purpose of enterprise architecture is to optimize across the enterprise the often fragmented legacy of processes (both manual and automated) into an integrated environment that is responsive to change and supportive of the delivery of the business strategy." WRT Roadmaps, there is an entire phase dedicated to that. Check out Phase F. The very first object is to: "Finalize the Architecture Roadmap and the supporting Implementation and Migration Plan" WRT Business and Operating Models, yes they are not "explicitly" called out. But there not supposed to be. The very first step in B - D is to select appropriate reference models. Thats where these would plug in. It's that simple. Would I like for these to be incorporated into the core, possibly. We have to ask ourselves if this applies to everyone or just a select few at a certain maturity level. That is for a larger forum to decide. "TOGAF is not the modeling framework we all need, either because it does not tell us how to put the parts together in the whole. On top, TOGAF is IT. And is not even integrated with Archimate. I would say that "incomplete" is not strong enough." [Mike Walker] TOGAF isn't supposed to be a modeling framework. EA isn't modeling. Modeling is a means to an end. WRT TOGAF is IT. You're going to have to explain that a bit more. An untrained person looking at the ADM may think that but many certified TOGAF professionals use it for true EA. Like myself, I've used this for EA not EITA. WRT modeling and ArchiMate: They are closer than you think. Check out this article from Serge Thorn: http://sergethorn.blogspot.com/2012/03/building-enterprise-architecture-value.html Also let's be fair to a recent merging of these two. This is just like with any M&A. It takes time to bring them together. I have no doubt that will happen. If you want more information and why I'm so confident, join the Open Group and participate in the forums and you will see for yourself. I don't think it's fair to say this at this point in time. If they re not brought together formally in TOGAF v-Next then I'll agree with you. "Its content is not, the form is though. It's simply a too large, unstructured, not integrated collection of views coming from various work groups. How do you find an item when you need it? " [Mike Walker] AGREED!!!! To me you either do TOGAF or EA. At the end of the day, the firms lose though. [Mike Walker] Not sure I follow. You will have to back that statement up with some hard facts.