Monday 2 July 2012

Developing Reference 'Things' - Reference Architectures, Reference Models, Reference Frameworks

I have spent a lot of time in recent years developing various reference 'things' for clients and as part of our own research. Whether it has been SOA, Enterprise Architecture, Cloud Computing or more recently Enterprise Mobility, one thing has been clear - that organizations often lack a framework that should form the basis for consistency in these domains.

It is tempting, and common practice, for organizations to respond by acquiring such a framework 'off the shelf'. TOGAF in the EA domain would be a prime example. However, in our experience such 'off the shelf' solutions rarely provide a 100% match to requirements and must be customized and extended to be effective, especially if you want them to be easily assimilated by the organization and not become divisive. Nothing is worse for example than EA becoming just another silo because people don't agree with the framework foisted upon them.