Architecture change management

[Rakesh Chandru]

What phases of Enterprise architecture (according to TOGAF) gets affected, when a transportation company buys additional vehicles?

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

Is this an interview/homework question?

Answer: Possibly all of them.

The information given is not enough to decide what gets affected. Normally, during phase A, you will define the scope of the ADM cycle which will dictate what should be done in each phase (or if the phase is not required). Also in phase B, you will get enough information from the baseline architecture and requirements that will drive the Information and Technology architecture in the next 2 phases. Also, usually, you will iterate between B - D enough times as necessary until you have exhausted all possible solutions.

One doesn't just decide which phases to activate/skip at the onset of the ADM cycle.

[Rakesh Chandru]

Thank you Mr.Lalwani for your reply.
The question was just for my understanding about the phase, for my studies.
I thought of a scenario, where we have an existing EA for a transportation company and if they buy some new vehicles, which is say by factor 5 of their existing number of vehicles, how would they actually manage the change.

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

It entirely depends on what exactly changes and the scope of the architecture work. If they need new business processes to manage the vehicles, the the business architecture changes. These new business processes might need new applications, new servers, so there's change in Information system architectures and Infrastructure Architecture. Will the trucks need new storage facilities? That's a change in Infrastructure architecture.

[Rahul Mahindrakar]

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Will the trucks need new storage facilities? That's a change in Infrastructure architecture.
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Is this really within the scope of IT

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

That's kind of a big change between TOGAF 9 and TOGAF 8. TOGAF 8 was focused on IT. The TOGAF practitioners saw that the most frequent reason TOGAF would fail was because TOGAF didn't cover non IT related changes, so there were things outside their control. So, TOGAF 9 was expanded to conver the whole enterprise. And Enterprise is defined as anything and everything that works towards a common goal. TOGAF is about managing change, any kind of change, not just IT change. It's everyone, everything in the company, from the CEO to the janitor. Certainly, you can limit the scope of the ADM to just IT in phase A, but you don't get the benefits

This is why TOGAF 9 uses generic language. Phase C is called Information Systems architecture, not IT architecture. Phase D is called Infrastructure architecture, not Hardware architecture. Your "Information System" can all be on Post-Its, that's fine.. you can still use TOGAF principles to manage your Post - Its. Your "Infrastructure" could be a shoe box where you store your post-its. THat's fine. You can still use TOGAF principles. It doesn't have to be all IT.

[Rahul Mahindrakar]

Wow nice answer,

do you have some referance links in this regard

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

THis is kind of spread through out the TOGAF book. You really need to read TOGAF while keeping in mind that TOGAF is not just about IT. It's about building blocks. Building blocks can be anything, not just software and hardware packages. It could be people, places, legal documents, manual processes, everything

For example, TOGAF defines "enterprise" as

any collection of organizations that has a common set of goals. For example, an enterprise could be a government agency, a whole corporation, a division of a corporation, a single department, or a chain of geographically distant organizations linked together by common ownership.

Enterprise is collections of organizations. That means everything in the organization

It defines architecture as

"The fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution."

Again this can be anything, not just IT systems.

And enterprise architecture is simply architecture of an enterprise, or IOW, the fundamental organization of organizations thhat have a common set of goals, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing their design and evolution
That encompasses everything, not just IT.