Architecture Forum

Objective of Meeting

The objectives of this meeting were:

• To announce the results of the election of officers of the Forum and to hand-over to the newly elected Chair and Vice-Chair
• To progress the work of the Architecture Forum in evolving the TOGAF framework, in particular:
  • To hold an in-depth Product Management Workshop on TOGAF
  • And, in parallel, to hold an end-user Experiences and Requirements Workshop
• To receive updates on a number of ongoing projects and liaisons
• To discuss and reach agreement on a number of important new project proposals

The revised meeting agenda is available here. 

Summary

In this members-only meeting, the Architecture Forum progressed its work on TOGAF, received reports on a number of important ongoing projects and liaisons, and in addition mandated new work in several areas relating to TOGAF.  Also, for the first time, the Architecture Forum held a workshop where practitioners were able to share their experiences, issues, and requirements and to establish actions to address them and to share their work, where this is feasible, to raise the level of knowledge for all members.

The presentations and detailed minutes of these proceedings are available to members only from the Architecture Forum web site.

Topics covered:

• Election of Officers
• TOGAF Product Management
• Experiences and Requirements
• Project and Liaison Status Updates
• New Project Proposals

Election of Officers

Allen Brown, President & CEO of The Open Group and acting Forum Director, announced the results of the recent elections:

1. Chris Forde of American Express has been elected Chair for 2007.
2. Jane Varnas of Bank of Montreal has been elected Vice-Chair.

Chris Forde later laid out his view of the areas to be tackled in the forward agenda of the Architecture Forum. 

TOGAF Product Management

Garry Doherty, The Open Group TOGAF Product Manager, at his second meeting since joining the company, led this workshop.

The group reviewed modifications to the TOGAF product development process and reviewed selected content from the process.  They also explored the path from TOGAF 8.x to TOGAF 9 and into the future.  A potential long-term vision was presented but not yet discussed.

Experiences and Requirements

Allen Brown led this workshop.

This group took, as a start point, the findings from the Tuesday afternoon session in Stream 2, "I have downloaded TOGAF, now what?"  They found that many shared the same challenges of introducing enterprise architecture and had similar experiences and learning points.  The group agreed on a number of actions designed to help others avoid similar outcomes, to raise the level of knowledge through sharing information, blueprints, patterns, templates, standards, etc.

In particular they agreed to:

• Develop an Enterprise Architecture Readiness Model
• Establish a process for sharing
• Develop a simple basis for the definition of roles
• Feed in customer requirements to the TOGAF development process

Project and Liaison Status Updates

Update reports were provided on the following topics:

• TOGAF 9 Development - Judith Jones, Architecting-the-Enterprise
• Service Oriented Architectures - Chris Greenslade, CLARS
• MDA/TOGAF Synergy Project - Ed Harrington, Data Access Technologies
• Business Architecture Work Group - Walter Stahlecker, Fellow of The Open Group
• Building Blocks/Architecture Information Base Project - Bill Estrem, Metaplexity Associates
• Architecture and Academia - Mike Lambert, Fellow of The Open Group & Reading University

and on the following liaisons:

• ITIL - Judith Jones, Architecting-the-Enterprise

New Project Proposals

The forum mandated a new project:

• TOGAF Toolability

Outputs

Overall, this was a highly successful and productive meeting. Chris Forde concluded his first meeting as Chair by saying that this has been one of the most challenging weeks of his career and at the same time one of the most satisfying.

• The Open Group work to date on TOGAF Product Management was reviewed and improved and plans laid for moving forward.
• Practitioners had a venue to share experiences and develop plans to raise the extent of shared know-how in implementing enterprise architecture.
• Members received updates on a number of important ongoing projects within the Architecture Forum.
• Agreement was reached on moving forward with another important new project.

Next Steps

• Establish a strong forward agenda for the Forum as a whole
• Continue to move forward with TOGAF Product Management and TOGAF 9 Development
• Continue to make progress in all of the activities listed above and ongoing projects

Links

• A full report is available on the Architecture Forum web site (members only)
• About the Architecture Forum (public)