EA Frameworks
Zachman, FEAF and others — vocabulary rather than method.
4 to work through
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beginner
A company of 900 engineers has no enterprise architecture function and every team designs its own systems competently. Which decisions are genuinely absent, rather than simply made elsewhere?
3 min answer -
beginner Multiple choice
Fourteen teams produce architecture diagrams nobody can compare. The same rectangle means a single service in one diagram and an entire platform in another; arrows sometimes mean data flow and sometimes deployment. Leadership cannot answer which applications support the claims capability or which run on the estate leaving support next year. The CIO asks which EA framework to adopt. Which move addresses the actual problem?
3 min answer -
intermediate
A fast-growing technology company is deciding whether to adopt a formal EA framework. What should decide it, and what is the alternative?
2 min answer -
intermediate
Which enterprise architecture artefacts would you actually maintain, and why those?
2 min answer
2 terms in this topic
EA Framework Selection
Choosing how much formal enterprise architecture method an organisation needs, on the basis that most need considerably less than the frameworks describe.
conceptEA Frameworks
The available enterprise architecture frameworks, what each contributes, and the common failure of adopting one wholesale.
Neighbouring topics
Enterprise Architecture
General material on architecture at portfolio and estate scale.
EA Domains
Business, application, data and technology architecture as viewpoints.
Application Architecture
The application estate as a designed portfolio rather than an accumulation.
Technology Architecture
Platforms, runtimes and infrastructure standards across the estate.
Capability Maps in EA
The stable frame for hanging investment, ownership and health off.
Application Portfolio Management
Inventory, ownership, cost and health for every application.
Application Rationalisation
Retire, consolidate, replatform — and why retirement is under-applied.
Technology Standards
Guidance that teams follow because it helps, not because it is mandated.
Technology Radar
Adopt, trial, assess and hold — with movement, dates and owners.
Reference Architectures
Pre-approved templates for recurring solution shapes.
Architecture Governance
Preventive, automated controls rather than review meetings.
Architecture Review Boards
Thresholds, early engagement and a real route to accept deviation.
Enterprise Integration
Estate-wide integration strategy, standards and shared infrastructure.
TOGAF
The ADM as a checklist, tailored rather than followed literally.
Architecture Roadmaps
Sequencing change across an estate with dependencies and funding.
Paved Roads
Making the supported path the easiest path, with a way to leave it.
Platform Teams
Reducing other teams' cognitive load, measured by adoption.
InnerSource
Open-source collaboration practices applied inside an organisation.
EA Metrics
Measuring whether architecture work changed anything.