The Open Group OGBA-101 - TOGAF Business Architecture Foundation Exam

In developing an Architecture Vision within TOGAF, the architect should examine and search for foundational Business Architecture concepts to ensure that the enterprise architecture is aligned with the organization’s strategy and delivers value to stakeholders. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the relevant Business Architecture concepts that need to be examined in this context:

Business CapabilitiesBusiness Capabilities represent the core abilities or capacities of an organization that allow it to achieve specific purposes or outcomes. In TOGAF, identifying and analyzing Business Capabilities helps architects understand the organization’s functional strengths and gaps. This examination provides insight into which capabilities are critical for achieving strategic goals and how they may need to evolve to support the target architecture.

Value StreamsValue Streams depict the end-to-end processes that deliver value to customers, stakeholders, or end users. By identifying Value Streams, the architect can understand how value is created and delivered, ensuring that architecture decisions support these value-generating processes. Value Streams in TOGAF are integral to identifying areas where improvements, efficiencies, or innovations can be applied, enhancing the organization’s ability to meet its strategic objectives.

Organization MapsOrganization Maps outline the relationships between various entities within the enterprise, including internal departments, partners, and stakeholders. These maps provide a structural overview, showing the formal and informal relationships that influence how work is conducted across the organization. In the Architecture Vision phase, Organization Maps help architects understand organizational dependencies, stakeholder concerns, and potential alignment issues between business units.

Application in the Architecture Vision Phase:

By examining these concepts—Business Capabilities, Value Streams, and Organization Maps—the architect can gain a comprehensive understanding of the current state of the business and how it is structured to deliver value. This analysis is essential for setting a realistic and strategically aligned vision that addresses core business needs and prepares the organization for future growth and transformation.

TOGAF References:

TOGAF Standard, Architecture Vision Phase

TOGAF Business Architecture guidelines on Business Capabilities, Value Streams, and Organization Mapping

A business model is a high-level conceptual representation that explains how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value. This encompasses the organization’s core logic for creating value, and may include its intended customer segments, the value propositions it offers, the channels through which it reaches customers, customer relationships it establishes, key activities, resources, and partnerships, as well as the revenue streams and cost structures. Thus, it is a visual and strategic representation of how a business operates and competes in the marketplace.

Phase A of the TOGAF ADM (Architecture Development Method), also known as the Architecture Vision phase, focuses on defining the problem to be solved, identifying stakeholders, their concerns, and requirements. Here’s a detailed explanation:

Phase A: Architecture Vision:

Objective: The primary objective of Phase A is to establish a high-level vision of the architecture project, including defining the scope and identifying key stakeholders and their concerns.

Problem Definition: This phase involves clearly defining the business problem or opportunity that the architecture project seeks to address. This sets the stage for all subsequent architecture work.

Stakeholder Identification:

Identification and Analysis: Stakeholders are identified and their concerns and requirements are gathered. This includes business leaders, IT leaders, end-users, and other relevant parties.

Understanding Needs: Understanding the needs and expectations of stakeholders is crucial for ensuring that the architecture aligns with business objectives and addresses key concerns.

Requirements Gathering:

High-Level Requirements: In Phase A, high-level requirements are identified and documented. These requirements guide the development of the architecture vision and provide a basis for more detailed requirements in later phases.

Requirements Management: A requirements management process is established to ensure that stakeholder needs are continuously captured, analyzed, and addressed throughout the architecture development process.

TOGAF References:

Deliverables: Key deliverables of Phase A include the Architecture Vision document, stakeholder map, and high-level requirements.

ADM Guidelines: TOGAF provides guidelines and techniques for conducting Phase A, including methods for stakeholder analysis, problem definition, and developing the architecture vision.

In summary, Phase A of the TOGAF ADM focuses on defining the problem to be solved, identifying stakeholders, understanding their concerns and requirements, and developing a high-level architecture vision that aligns with business objectives.

According to the TOGAF Standard, an enterprise is defined as any collection of organizations that has a common set of goals and/or a single bottom line1. The examples given in the question are all types of enterprises that can be the subject of enterprise architecture1.

In the context of TOGAF, the term 'enterprise' encompasses more than just a single organization. It refers to any collection of organizations that has a common set of goals. This can include, as described in the statements provided, entire corporations or their divisions, government agencies or departments, as well as business partnerships such as consortia or supply chains. TOGAF uses the term 'enterprise' to define the full scope of the entity that is the subject of planning, design, implementation, and operation of an Enterprise Architecture.

The diagram shows the Enterprise Continuum, which is a view of the Architecture Repository that provides methods for classifying architecture and solution artifacts as they evolve from generic Foundation Architectures to Organization-Specific Architectures4. The Enterprise Continuum comprises two complementary concepts: the Architecture Continuum and the Solutions Continuum. The Architecture Continuum shows the relationships among foundational frameworks, common system architectures, industry architectures, and enterprise architectures4. The Solutions Continuum shows the relationships among foundational solutions, common system solutions, industry solutions, and enterprise solutions4.

In the TOGAF ADM, the Preliminary Phase sets up the architecture capability within the organization, establishing architecture governance, defining architecture principles, and setting up necessary processes and tools. This phase is crucial for laying the foundation before formal architecture development begins.

Business Scenarios and Business Models are tools that architects can present to stakeholders to facilitate discussions that reveal underlying assumptions, agendas, principles, and requirements. They help in understanding the context, extracting and validating requirements, and identifying potential impacts on the target architecture. By discussing scenarios and models, stakeholders can express their vision and concerns, which may include unspoken or implicit needs that are crucial for the architecture's success.

The technique shown in the example is called heat mapping. It is a technique that can be used to show a range of different perspectives on a business capability map, such as maturity, effectiveness, performance, and value or cost contribution of each capability to the business2. Different attributes determine the colors of each capability on the business capability map. Heat mapping can help to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the business architecture.

https://governance.foundation/assets/frameworks/togaf/g189%20-%20Business%20Capbility.pdf

Table 3: Heat Map for ABC Company’s Business Capabilities