The Architecture Forum’s Austin meeting comprised two sessions: a one-hour teleconference on Wednesday July 6, 2011, and a full day face-to-face meeting on Thursday July 21, 2011. During the week commencing July 18 in Austin, a number of Working Groups and Standing Committees also met. (Minutes from those meetings are available in the Architecture Forum member’s site under the Meeting Minutes category.)
The July 6 teleconference addressed administrative matters for the Forum, including quarterly reports for the Standing Committees and Working Groups. The most significant consent items included suspension of the TOGAF 9 Maintenance Working Group, renaming of the Practicing Architect Working Group to Project Hermes, and approval of the current work programs to continue.
The July 21 meeting was held in conjunction with The Open Group Austin Conference and Members' Meetings. At the start of the meeting there were 15 voting members present. As this was insufficient for a quorum, a two-week consensus check on the decisions made will occur after the meeting.
The Forum Chair gave an update on the status of how the Forum Strategy is being actioned and the areas in which we are currently most active (TOGAF, Extended Focus, EA Profession). We are pulling a number of threads of activity together to develop an improved version of TOGAF. The current Roadmap shows a target date for the next major revision being in 2013.
The Forum agreed that the company review of the TOGAF 9 Tools certification program should commence. The Forum approved the charter and the work plan for the TOGAF next Working Group. The Forum approved the plan for the next maintenance update of TOGAF.
The Forum agreed to rename the TOGAF/ArchiMate Harmonization Working Group to the TOGAF next Modeling Working Group, and for the Working Group to change its scope of activity to become the owner of the modeling activities within TOGAF next.
The Forum approved the charter of the TOGAF Cloud Ecosystem Working Group, with the proviso that they consider impacts on the Architecture Content Metamodel and not just the ADM, and that they consider the timeline for deliverables to take into consideration the TOGAF next development.
A discussion was held about how we govern the activities of the Forum, and the operational aspects. It was agreed to refresh the reporting template, and after the Taipei meeting to cease the virtual pre-meetings and instead have the reporting session as part of the Forum meeting with remote access for that part of the meeting. As neither the Chair nor Vice-Chair will be present in Taipei for the Forum meeting, it was agreed that Peter Haviland would be the Acting Chair.
The meeting also included a number of informational updates on the Standing Committees and Working Groups that had met during the conference and not reported in other slots:
- Peter Haviland reported on the TOGAF/Archimate Architecture Content Framework Working Group.
- Bob Weisman reported on the Information Architecture Working Group.
- Peter Haviland reported on the Value Realization Working Group.
