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TOGAF® Fundamental Content

Extended Guidance

General How-To

Establishing an EA Team

Domains
Agile Methods
Business Architecture
Data/Information Architecture
Sustainability
Security Architecture

Reference Models & Method

1. Introduction

This chapter provides an introduction to the guidance provided in the TOGAF Standard — Applying the ADM (this document).

The Architecture Development Method (ADM) process can be adapted to deal with many different usage scenarios, including different process styles (e.g., the use of iteration) and also specific specialist architectures (such as security). Guidelines included within this document are as follows:

1.1 Using the TOGAF Framework with Different Architecture Styles

The TOGAF framework is designed to be flexible and is used with various architectural styles.

Architectural styles differ in terms of focus, form, techniques, materials, subject, and time period. The TOGAF Standard is a generic framework intended to be used in a wide variety of environments. It is a flexible and extensible framework that can be readily adapted to a number of architectural styles.

An organization's Architecture Landscape can be expected to contain architecture work that is developed in many architectural styles. The TOGAF Standard ensures that the needs of each stakeholder are appropriately addressed in the context of other stakeholders and the Baseline Architecture.

When using the TOGAF Standard to support a specific architectural style the practitioner must take into account the combination of distinctive features in which architecture is performed or expressed. As a first step, the distinctive features of a style must be identified.

The second step is determining how these distinctive features will be addressed. Addressing a distinctive style should not call for significant changes to the TOGAF framework; instead it should adjust the models, viewpoints, and tools used by the practitioner.

In Phase B, Phase C, and Phase D the practitioner is expected to select the relevant architecture resources, including models, viewpoints, and tools, to properly describe the architecture domain and demonstrate that stakeholder concerns are addressed (see the TOGAF Standard — ADM Techniques). Depending upon the distinctive features, different architectural styles will add new elements that must be described, highlight existing elements, adjust the notation used to describe the architecture, and focus the architect on some stakeholders or stakeholder concerns.

Addressing the distinctive features will usually include extensions to the Architecture Content Metamodel and the use of specific notation or modeling techniques and the identification of viewpoints. Dominance of a particular architectural style can direct the practitioner to revisit the Preliminary Phase to make changes to the Architecture Capability or to address a distinctive feature in the expected scope of a single ADM cycle.

Style-specific reference models and maturity models are commonly used tools that support a practitioner.

During the lifetime of the TOGAF framework many architectural styles have been developed to address key problems facing practitioners and to demonstrate how the TOGAF framework can be made more relevant within defined contexts.

Some of these have been developed by The Open Group Forums and Work Groups working in specific areas and have been published in Guides, White Papers, and Standards. Examples include:

Some of these have been developed collaboratively between The Open Group and other bodies. Examples include:

The TOGAF Library (see www.opengroup.org/togaf-library) is a structured library of resources that support the TOGAF Standard.

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