A paper discussing the practical considerations when using TOGAF® for the second time.

Much of the writing on TOGAF® is about starting out in Enterprise Architecture. For example, the Introduction to TOGAF in Part 1 of the TOGAF documentation “provides an executive overview of enterprise architecture, the basic concepts of what it is (not just another name for IT Architecture), and why it is needed. It provides a summary of the benefits of establishing an enterprise architecture and adopting TOGAF to achieve that”. Explaining the benefits of EA in the first place is all very well, but we also need to think about the issues organizations face when they continue to use TOGAF!

Iteration is simply the repetition of a process such as the ADM. But although TOGAF describes Applying Iteration to the ADM in Chapter 19, it doesn’t really highlight the huge difference between a first and second iteration of ADM.

Why does it matter? Well most of all – we all want to be successful. We want to know that we are doing something worthwhile and, deep down, that we still have a job to go to. But underlying the need to survive are some considerations that often get overlooked. I know of too many organizations that completed the first iteration of TOGAF without really considering how things have changed for the second iteration. One company cancelled their EA programme – despite a highly successful initial iteration – because the EA team couldn’t cope with escalating demands. In a way they were victims of their own success, but looked at another way they might have prevented their early demise by being better prepared.

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