TOGAF

Template : TOGAF Deliverable Templates

TOGAF because it gives structure to a conversation that otherwise stays vague for months: what are we actually building, in what order, and who needs to agree before we move to the next step. It doesn’t tell you what your architecture should look like. It tells you how to get from a business ambition to a working architecture without skipping the parts that usually get skipped, like connecting the data model to the business process it’s meant to serve, or checking that the technology choice actually supports the governance model you need.

What it brings, in practice:

Shared vocabulary. Business, Data, Application, and Technology stop being siloed conversations and become four views of the same decision.

Traceability. Because each domain builds on the last, you can trace a technology decision back to the business capability it supports, which makes it far easier to defend priorities when budgets get tight.

A governance loop, not a one-off exercise. Borrowing the change management mindset means the architecture expects things to change and gives you a place to feed that back in, rather than treating it as a document that goes stale the day it’s published.

A bread-and-butter example

To understand the value of TOGAF, let’s look at a real-world example from the wind industry.

Imagine a wind turbine manufacturer that wants to improve its ability to manage the complete lifecycle of its turbines. The company wants to reduce service costs, improve reliability, increase digital capabilities, and create a stronger connection between engineering, manufacturing, service, and customer operations.

The challenge is not only technology. The challenge is aligning business strategy, processes, data, applications, and technology into a coherent target architecture.

TOGAF provides a structured approach for moving from the current state to the future state.

Architecture Vision: Why are we changing?

The first step is to understand the business drivers and define the ambition.

Examples:

• Reduce turbine downtime by improving predictive maintenance
• Increase service efficiency through better asset information
• Create a single view of turbine lifecycle data
• Improve collaboration between engineering, manufacturing, and service teams
• Enable new digital services for customers

The outcome is a clear architecture vision that connects business objectives with architecture change.

Business Architecture: How does the business operate?

The next step is understanding the business capabilities and processes required to achieve the vision.

Examples of wind industry capabilities:

• Product lifecycle management
• Engineering design
• Manufacturing execution
• Supply chain management
• Installation and commissioning
• Service operations
• Asset performance management
• Customer management

TOGAF helps identify where the organisation needs to improve.

For example:

Today:

• Engineering manages turbine configurations in PLM
• Service teams maintain separate asset information
• Customers receive operational reports from different sources

Target:

• A connected turbine lifecycle where engineering, service, and customer teams share consistent information.

Data Architecture: What information is needed?

The next step is defining the information architecture.

Key business entities include:

• Turbine
• Wind farm
• Component
• Serial number
• Configuration
• Maintenance activity
• Failure event
• Sensor measurement
• Spare part

TOGAF helps define:

• Data ownership
• Data flows
• Information models
• Master data requirements
• Data governance responsibilities

For example:

A turbine configuration created during engineering must remain connected to the physical turbine installed in the field and the service history collected during operation.

Application Architecture: Which systems support the business?

The organisation then evaluates how applications support the required capabilities.

Current landscape:

• PLM system for engineering
• ERP system for procurement and finance
• Service management system
• IoT platform
• Data warehouse
• Reporting solutions

Potential target architecture:

• Integrated PLM and ERP processes
• Connected asset lifecycle platform
• Shared APIs between systems
• Enterprise data platform for analytics and AI

The focus is not replacing systems for the sake of technology. The focus is ensuring that applications enable business capabilities.

Technology Architecture: What technology enables the solution?

The technology architecture defines the platforms and infrastructure needed.

Examples:

• Cloud data platform
• IoT ingestion platform
• API management
• Integration services
• Identity and security platforms
• Analytics and AI environments

For example:

Operational turbine data may flow from sensors through an IoT platform into a cloud data platform where machine learning models predict component failures.

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