We say that we can describe and solve the business problems with enterprise architecture.

Then it should be a piece of cake to describe how we architects should work.

So let us start working as real enterprise architects with a method to boot-strap ourselves.

Image by Chris Gladis at Flickr — Image by Chris Gladis at Flickr

Using one of the frameworks, IAF, this means that we have to describe several aspect areas:

Business processes (including roles)
Information model (our terminology)
Applications (to support our work)
Infrastructure ( to support our applications)

So what we need is architecture processes, a meta model describing both deliverables, artefacts and their relations as well as some applications to support our work. Finally we have to add some governance and security to the mix.

If we can't describe our own work with our methods, then don't try to describe a much more complex business organisation. They will not trust you.

First of all we have to describe the business context, i.e the business value of architecture and the need of the organisation. Do you remember a previous post about Value of Architecture? The requirements are our level of ambition as described in What's good enough.

So in the next four articles will I describe some examples of governance models, give examples of processes for architects, talk about meta models and their importance and in the end about our tools.

If you start selecting the tool before collecting the requirements are you not yet an enterprise architect.

Disruptive architecture