What is new?
Well an easy question but apparently not an easy answer. I posed the question on the business architecture group on linkedin and nobody yet has come up with a succinct answer. The most common reply is read the manual.
Apparently the conversion course from v. 8 to 9 encompasses 12 modules to upgrade the certification for TOGAF.
Is this the real problem with these I.T. base frameworks that they can't seem to communicate simple distilled messages without vast quantities of over intellectualisation; no wonder that business leaders get so frustrated with I.T. types who seem to them to add limited value.
When we try to sell good business architecture this type of situation just seems to make life so harder. I begin to wonder whether this overwhelming pursuit of accreditation is some what self serving than really value adding - training fees and bureaucracy income maybe. I am being cynical this afternoon!
I will invest some time reading the tome and come back when I have the answer; I suppose that is the role of a trainer - research, summarise and communicate!
I have now had time to read through the migration document and it lives up to expectations. It is in my view dull and uninspiring and doesn't really make one want to acquire the handbook to find out more.
ReplyDeleteI shall wait until I can download it free because from the information provided so far it doesnt motivate me yet to put my hand in my pocket!
I wonder some times whether the Open Group fails us in business architecture more than it assists us some times, as its outputs, in style and format, alienate business people more and more.
Where are the benefits? it is all feature based, no USPs, no compelling statements and why should people use this.
There does seem to be an inability to communicate in an inspirational way or certainly indeed clearly and consisely. This is a common feature of I.T. based artifacts so I suppose it isn't surprising.
I think if the opengroup want to become business accepted then they need a serious facelift in communication, attitude and approach. My opinion only of course!
The documents are written in an assumptive way that the reader is already versed deeply in the content. Is this just me or do others agree?
I appreciate that the migration document probably assumes that one knows TOGAF 8.0 but a senario is that a business person on hearing about TOGAF wiill explore google see "TOGAF 9" and see it as the latest version and starts to explore. He/she then sees 14 pages of meaningless jargon and closes the file labelling the framework as inappropriate - result communication failure. Am I being harsh?
Maybe there is a cultural gap here between business leaders and folks that produce documents like this - I don't know?
The only bit that that sounded interesting was the capability framework which needs further investigation on my part.
People in business don't even know what the Open Group is.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the various IT-originated organizations that produce "frameworks" serve mainly to distract IT professionals from the real tasks at hand, and keep them compartmentalized, apart from the business.
If IT people want to speak business, these frameworks are not the path: instead, they should learn the language of business. They should read the works of Porter, Drucker, and Weil, and stop trying to reduce business to a cookbook-like framework: anyone who is in business for real knows that that cannot be done, the business is all about making good decisions, not creating framework documents.