My TOGAF Journey

I passed TOGAF 9.2 Part 1 and 2 certification in April 2020 and received request from multiple LinkedIn connections and friends to share some insights on my journey. You would get various sources of ‘what, why and when’ of TOGAF on the web. I will try my best to answer ‘how’ part of it by supporting it with what I did to get there. So here it goes.

Disclaimer:

1. I would strongly recommend, NOT to go for this certification for the sake of it. It would be a waste of time as well as money* if you are not already in such a role or not in the near future. You should target this only if you have significant experience.
2. Its definitely a milestone and there is no failure in this process. You either pass or you learn, to come back even stronger. Certification is just a by product of the knowledge gained.

* Exam fee : USD 720 (Part 1 and 2 taken separately) || USD 550 – Both parts taken in one sitting. I opted for the 2nd one.

I took both the exams in the same sitting and took about 120 min for part 1 and 60 mins for part 2. The result appears after the part 2 exams and you will have to reappear if you fail either of them (Details here). The pass or fail result appears immediately after you click on submit but the certificate takes atleast 1 day. I took my exams in the online proctored format at home due to COVID lockdown. The moderator message me multiple times to not to read out questions loudly, remove my hand from my face, not move multiple times, not to make extra noises ... The technology was flawless and I was nervous!!

Hmm.. this was a difficult one with my full-time work and I knew that there is no alternative to hard work. It took me almost a year to gain confidence to appear for the certification. It does help if you are already in a similar role and have been participating in larger projects which are cross functional and organized. Having a background in transformation, process improvements, business analysis and project management helps, though it is a very smaller part of the overall enterprise architecture framework. During this learning process I realized that everything that I was learning was not new and I have already been doing it in various other forms and calling it by various terminologies, as a part of other frameworks like ITIL, PMP, Prince2, Six Sigma etc. Some points to keep in mind are while to embark on this journey are:

• The assumption that this is yet another technology certification, is wrong. At least I disagree. This is an enterprise framework. Technology solutions come very late in the process. Stop thinking like a technologist while working on this framework. Having a technology background helps but is not mandatory. You will realize this when you go deeper in the content.
• Experience in business roles helps to understand the initial phases the best. Strong business analysis skills are big positive.
• Every transformation project should be aligned to business need and should have an ROI.
• Look at the larger picture and think big.

So, it may also be about unlearning, learning and/or relearning coupled with your experience.

TOGAF has a bit more of theory compared to other certifications and you may get bored and lose focus, as I did (twice) but believe me you will see the worth at the end. I utilized the time gaps to get some Salesforce certifications and then jumped back to TOGAF, since I was determined to get it. Here are the steps that I followed:

Step 1: Online courses

The best way to start is to enroll for an online course. This will keep you motivated and engaged and will help to understand the overall concepts and the terminology. A lot that would not make sense in the first pass or may even cause confusion but later you will see the dots connected. I went through multiple web contents, but will recommend the following

• Udemy: Scott Duffy Start your journey with this. It is simple to understand and keeps you on schedule. I liked the content and the style.
• Simplilearn : Online classroom and free access to online content. They had a very interesting offer for the certification voucher which made the course access almost free with a validity of one year. With this I had a deadline in mind which was the expiry date of the voucher.
• Various websites and webinar whenever I got time, e.g. CIO, Gartner and HBR articles and white papers.

All the above will help to speak the TOGAF language and understand the basics.

Step 2: TOGAF official documentation

Finally, I zeroed to the TOGAF official guide . I also realized that I did not need anything more than this. You may want to skip Step 1 depending upon your learning style/comfort. I set a target of 3 months. These are the 2 documents you need.

1. The TOGAF standards: Also known as C182
2. TOGAF Conformance Requirements

Both these documents must be read together, with Conformance requirement as an index and the standards as the content. You may Google to know more on how to read both the documents together. By this time you will also be able to relate your work experience with the concepts of TOGAF framework. As I mentioned earlier most of us are already doing this but not as per the framework.

You may need multiple passes to the document and by the 1st or the 2nd pass you will start speaking the TOGAF language. You will now start appreciating larger project discussion and transformation initiatives. Now you also should start thinking like an Enterprise architect already.

Step 3: Online Sample tests

Another Disclaimer: Do not treat this as a dump. None of the questions on my test were from them but yes there were similar ones. Many of them would have wrong answers too with no explanation. Please do not get distracted or loose heart. If you are not confident about your answer then go back to the documents and do another revision.

There are various tests available online. Google and choose the format that you like the most

• Start with part 1 tests > Appear for test > Check wrong answers >  Refer TOGAF documents and read the sections again > Reappear the test.

This may also make you realize that you are right and the answer on the test is wrong. Repeat this with multiple tests till you gain confidence over your weak sections. Do a couple of part 2 exams to be familiar with the pattern and how to look for the answers. Part two is an open book (C182) exam but the book will be provided in the question as a PDF. You need to start thinking like an Enterprise architect while you attempt the questions. Everything is logical if you have that experience backing up your preparation. Some important pointers

• Understand the Phases and important steps within the phases
• The framework is for Enterprise and not Just for Technology. Hence, think like an EA (I am repeating this again and again)
• Remember the tools, techniques and key outcome which matters most to the business and the project organization. You would already be using most of them like Stakeholder management, As-is , To-Be, Gap analysis, Requirement gathering ,Make-buy, ROI etc.
• Do not try and memorize. Everything is logical and is connected. If you get stuck then put your self in shoes of one of the roles and think out the best possible action which would help being in that phase of ADM (I am sure you would know about ADM by now)

Step 4: Register for the exam (this could be step 0 well)

I would suggest for a date which has a couple of holidays around and a long weekend. Why? I will clarify in the next step

Step 5: Accelerated learning

In the last 2-3 month when you are determined to appear the start devoting 1-2 hours daily and at least 3-4 hours on weekends. This will totally depend upon your capacity and experience. 1 week before the exam keep the momentum up by repeating step 3. In this process you would not realize that you would have gone through the entire TOGAF document multiple times. I had to do some late nights and full day (Weekends) for this. Couple of days before the exams, do not read about anything else but TOGAF to avoid any last moment confusions.

Last Step:

Shut your books on the day before the last day of the exams. Do not try and add more knowledge or new items to your knowledge base.

Tips for the D day: Google and you will find many??

All the best for your journey. Do drop me messages if you need any help!