The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is the leading enterprise architecture frame work. There are so many frameworks but it may be confusing which one is the best fit for your organization. Especially, when there are more than 20 frameworks that are used to do enterprise architecture. These frameworks can be categorized either as industry specific or corporate propriety. While, we are not arguing the value of these frameworks when they are put into practice in an organization. There have been many result oriented architectures which organizations can claim success from these frameworks.
What makes TOGAF important to the enterprise architecture community is that it is a framework which is built on open standards. This translates to organizations being able to use TOGAF as their enterprise architecture framework for free. They do not have to pay any organization maintenance cost or anything to implement this framework. Companies are always looking for ways to save money especially with cuts in corporate budgets and the need to do more work with less resources. The TOGAF framework has a strong user community who supports the development of the framework. This is one of most adopted frameworks by organizations across the globe. This leads to more opportunities for organizations to find resources in a domain which has been notoriously difficult to recruit qualified enterprise architects capable of understanding how their company does business. Since the company uses TOGAF then they build their architecture the same way that other organizations build their architecture using this framework. The ability of organizations to leverage their resources to capitalize on the benefits of TOGAF would truly make a difference in organizations making better decisions on their technology to support their business needs.
The TOGAF framework has been tried, tested, validated in many organizations around the world. This framework can be used with other existing management frameworks that your company may use. For example, if your company uses ITIL then you can also integrate the TOGAF into the practices of ITIL. There are many benefits from having a framework which is widely used, accepted, and an industry standard. Your organization should pick a framework which will develop the type of artifacts that are needed which are specific to your organization’s needs. When you implement processes, procedures, governance, and structure to manage your enterprise architecture then you should see greater corporate agility, communication, collaboration, and better decision making by corporate executives.