The Architecture Development Method (ADM) begins with the Preliminary Phase and Phase A: Architecture Vision. Creating an Architecture Vision, which includes defining business scenarios, is the foundational step for ensuring that the entire architecture effort is driven by and aligned with clear business objectives. This sets the direction before diving into detailed architectures or governance.

Architecture principles are a set of general rules and guidelines that inform and support the way an organization sets about fulfilling its mission. They are not about picking winners but about establishing a shared understanding (e.g., “Business Continuity overrides Time-to-Market”) that helps resolve conflicts and guide decision-making in a consistent, justified manner.

The Architecture Vision is a key early deliverable from Phase A of the ADM. It is designed to be a high-level, motivating summary of the target architecture and its value, created to secure stakeholder buy-in. It captures the “what and why” at a strategic level, before the detailed “how” is defined in subsequent phases.

TOGAF emphasizes separating logical and physical architecture. A list of products is a physical, solution-specific view. The Application Architecture should first define the logical application components, their responsibilities, and how they interact to support business processes and services. This logical view ensures the architecture is driven by business needs, not predetermined vendor choices.

Phase F: Migration Planning is dedicated to finalizing the Implementation and Migration Plan. This involves prioritizing projects, creating a detailed Migration Roadmap that sequences work packages, and estimating resources and costs. It bridges the gap between the defined target architecture and the concrete steps needed to realize it.

The Requirements Management phase is depicted at the center of the ADM cycle diagram. It is not a sequential step but an ongoing, continuous process that interacts with every other phase. Its purpose is to manage architecture requirements, ensuring that new, changing, or emerging requirements identified during any phase are properly captured, stored, and fed back into the relevant phase for consideration.

A Standards Catalog documents the agreed-upon standards (like the mandated use of the ESB for integrations) that apply to architecture work. The architecture board would use this catalog to assess compliance. The proposal’s custom integration likely violates a standard in this catalog, which would be a key governance point for the board’s decision.

The Function/Application Matrix (or Function to Application Alignment diagram) is a cross-mapping tool used to visualize the relationships between business functions and the applications that support them. It clearly shows which applications enable which functions, helping to identify gaps, redundancies, and the business impact of application changes.

Architecture Governance is a practice that provides direction, control, and enforcement for architecture work. Its core purpose is not to be obstructive but to provide assurance. It ensures that architectural designs align with strategy, comply with standards and regulations, manage risk, and ultimately deliver the expected business value from IT investments.

The Architecture Development Method (ADM) begins with the Preliminary Phase and Phase A: Architecture Vision. Creating an Architecture Vision, which includes defining business scenarios, is the foundational step for ensuring that the entire architecture effort is driven by and aligned with clear business objectives. This sets the direction before diving into detailed architectures or governance.0