How do you align your ACF outcomes with the enterprise architecture principles?

1 Understand your EA principles

Before you start creating or updating your ACF outcomes, you need to have a clear understanding of your EA principles. These are the fundamental statements that define the desired characteristics and behaviors of your EA and provide the basis for decision making and governance. They should be derived from your organization's strategy, culture, and stakeholder needs and expectations. You can use the TOGAF ADM Phase B: Business Architecture to identify and document your EA principles, as well as to assess their impact and applicability across the enterprise.

2 Align your ACF metamodel

The ACF metamodel defines the structure and relationships of the EA artifacts that you will produce and use in your ACF outcomes. It consists of three layers: core content, extensions, and reference models. You should align your ACF metamodel with your EA principles by ensuring that it supports the principles' objectives, scope, and compliance requirements. For example, if one of your EA principles is to promote reuse and interoperability, you should design your ACF metamodel to facilitate the identification and sharing of common services, standards, and interfaces.

3 Apply your EA principles to your ACF outcomes

Your ACF outcomes are the specific deliverables and artifacts that you will create and maintain throughout the EA lifecycle. They include catalogs, matrices, diagrams, specifications, and views that describe the current and target states of your EA domains and aspects. You should apply your EA principles to your ACF outcomes by ensuring that they reflect the principles' values, quality attributes, and constraints. For example, if one of your EA principles is to optimize business performance, you should use your ACF outcomes to analyze and improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and agility of your business processes, capabilities, and outcomes.

4 Review and validate your ACF outcomes

Once you have created or updated your ACF outcomes, you should review and validate them against your EA principles to ensure that they are consistent, coherent, and compliant. You can use the TOGAF ADM Phase F: Migration Planning to conduct a gap analysis and identify any issues or discrepancies that need to be resolved or mitigated. You can also use the TOGAF ADM Phase H: Architecture Change Management to monitor and evaluate the impact of any changes or updates to your EA principles or ACF outcomes and to ensure that they remain aligned over time.

5 Communicate and collaborate with your stakeholders

One of the most important aspects of aligning your ACF outcomes with your EA principles is to communicate and collaborate with your stakeholders. Your stakeholders are the people who have an interest or influence in your EA and its outcomes, such as business owners, users, customers, partners, regulators, and architects. You should engage with them throughout the EA lifecycle to solicit their input, feedback, and approval on your EA principles and ACF outcomes. You can use the TOGAF ADM Phase A: Architecture Vision to establish a common understanding and vision for your EA and its benefits, as well as to define the roles and responsibilities of your stakeholders.

6 Learn from your experience and best practices

Finally, you should always seek to learn from your experience and best practices when aligning your ACF outcomes with your EA principles. You can use the TOGAF ADM Phase G: Implementation Governance to measure and monitor the performance and value of your EA and its outcomes, as well as to identify and implement any improvements or lessons learned. You can also use the TOGAF ADM Phase E: Opportunities and Solutions to explore and adopt any best practices or standards that can help you achieve better alignment and integration of your EA principles and ACF outcomes.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?