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TOGAF Poster Series #63

Capabilities and TOGAF
by Roger Evernden

The word capability occurs more than 500 times in the TOGAF documentation. If you add the plural, capabilities,
there are another 140 occurrences! That makes it important, even if we only measure by volume.

And yet capabilities are probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you Capabilities were only mentioned by 3 of the students, but capabilities never made
think of TOGAF. This isnt a rigorous survey, but I recently asked a group of 10 it into the top three for any of the students.
students which were the parts of TOGAF that they thought were most important. Im not particularly surprised. Although capabilities are pervasive throughout the
TOGAF documentation, I dont think their importance is emphasized as much as it
The top five were: could be. Many students come to TOGAF from a technical background, so they are
not always familiar with the concept of capabilities.
The Architecture Development Method
The Content Framework and Metamodel But when you look at the structure of the TOGAF documentation it reects the
Techniques structure and content of an Architecture Capability within an enterprise and this
The Skills Framework is explicitly stated on one of the first pages of the document (Section 1.1 Structure
Reference Models of the TOGAF Document).

FIGURE 1.1: OF THE DOCUMENTATION SHOWS THE STRUCTURE OF THE TOGAF DOCUMENTATION
Needs of the business shape non-architectural aspects of business operation

TOGAF Capability Framework

Informs the size, structure, Sets targets, KPIs, plans, and

and culture of the capability
Effective operation of the Architecture
Capability ensures realization
of the Business Vision
Architecture Capability budgets for architecture roles
Framework
(Part VII) Business Capability drives the need
for Architecture Capability Maturity

The Architecture Capability

operates a method
Business need feeds into the method, Architecture Development
identifying problems to be addressed
Method(Part II)
Business Vision ADM Guidelines and The method delivers Business
and Drivers The method refines understanding of Capabilities
Techniques (Part III) new business solutions
business need

The method produces content to be

Architecture TOGAF ADM
stored in the Repository, classified ac-
cording to the Enterprise Continuum. Content & Content Framework
Framework
(Part IV)
The Enterprise Continuum
and Repository inform the
Enterprise Continuum Operational changes update the
business of current state
and Tools (Part V) Enterprise Continuum and Repository

TOGAF Reference
Models (Part VII) TOGAF Enterprise
Continuum and Tools

Learning from business operation creates new business need

Now I find it very interesting that this diagram places
the Architecture Capability Framework right at the
top, and that the central grey section of the diagram is
labelled as the TOGAF Capability Framework.
So, let me spell out four reasons why I think
capabilities are important for any Enterprise
Architecture practice:
1. Although it isnt the exclusive role of EA, a primary
reason for EA is to provide the architectural
foundation to enable the capabilities required by the
enterprise. In other words, a key role is to improve
or create the required management, business
operations, or infrastructure capabilities.
2. To carry out this role, the Enterprise Architecture
Team need relevant capabilities. In other words,
unless the EA team have the right level of EA maturity
in terms of expertise, experience, commitment,
resources, etc. then they wont be able to help
improve or change enterprise, business and IT
capabilities.
3. There is a very strong relationship between
capabilities and architecture patterns. If you draw
a Capability Context Diagram which shows the
key aspects or dimensions of a capability from a
stakeholder perspective then you will find that it is
like an architecture pattern covering the same scope.
The main different is that an architecture pattern
is a more formal representation that describes
and explains the components, their configuration,
and consequences at an architectural level of
understanding; the Capability Context Diagram
describes the same subject by emphasising the
stakeholder requirements and concerns.
4. Bullet point 1 described the enterprise, business or IT
capabilities; bullet point 2 described the capabilities
of the EA team. Another vital area is the change
management capability of the enterprise. This is the
readiness of the enterprise management, business
or IT to carry out the necessary changes to create
the capabilities requires to address stakeholder
concerns.
From this you can see that there are three very closely
inter-related capabilities. To be successful the EA team
needs to take all three into account. If the business is
expecting transformational change to a capability, but
the EA team doesnt have the maturity to define and
develop the appropriate architectural changes then
it will be very hard to make the transition. If a mature
architecture team provide all the relevant building
blocks and guidance to radically improve a capability,
but the organization has a very conservative culture
and decision makers wont give the necessary
commitment and support You get the general idea.
Going back to the TOGAF documentation all
three types of capability are mentioned, but the
documentation doesnt emphasise the importance of
integrating all three types of capability. So, next time
you study the TOGAF documentation, bear in mind the
importance of capabilities. You might be surprised to
see how frequently capability is mentioned there!

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Source: The eight fundamental factors in EA Information First, Roger & Elaine Evernden, Butterworth Heinemann, 2003