Why could TOGAF be the next big thing?

Looking at the last four years, very few people were considering Service Management seriously. ITIL was almost unknown in Europe outside of the UK and the Netherlands. Small initiatives were taken places around process improvement and from time to time companies were envisaging some sort of service improvement program.

Vendors (mostly help desk solutions were selling in some ways, improvement with the OGC processes by promoting system management solutions). Years after years, ITIL became famous, most vendors started to re-brand their offering and solutions, which became "ITIL compatible" (which does no mean anything by the way...). Companies such as HP, IBM, CA, SUN, and many others started to sell the concepts of best practices, adopting IIL as the way forward.

These days, many people have now jumped on the bandwagon and everyone is referring to ITIL. All software and IT consulting companies pretends mastering Service Management. Yesterday EMC even positioned themselves as a new Service Management company. ITIL is now a given and every single It Data Center is now embracing the framework which has become an IT Governance pillar.

But how can we improve the famous IT Business alignment, as Service Management contributes to this but is not as visible as expected despite what is claimed by the IT industry!

Enterprise Architecture is becoming a new standard as already described in my other article “Why is Enterprise Architecture becoming the “next big thing? ”, but people will be looking at a framework in the same way they looked at a framework for Service Management.

After several months of investigation, studying the various existing Enterprise Architecture frameworks such as: META (Gartner), Zachman, TEAF, FEAF, DODAF, IEEE Std 1471, ISO RM ODP, NASCIO, IBM ESS, I came to the conclusion that TOGAF 8.1 was the most evolved and appropriate framework for a company which is process oriented. Other frameworks are sometimes referring to process, but not as detailed as the one from the Open Group.

Developed by the Open Group in 1995, The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) provides the most comprehensive methodology for producing architecture deliverables. With its most recent version (version 8), also known as TOGAF Enterprise Edition — TOGAF’s Architecture Development Method (ADM) was quite substantially expanded beyond technology architecture to include business architecture, information architecture, and application architecture

It is an open framework, highly customizable. The core components of TOGAF are its Architecture Development Method (ADM) and the TOGAF Foundation Architecture.

The ADM defines a process for developing and maintaining the organization's Enterprise Architecture, and for implementing the architecture through a planned program of work
It is non-prescriptive about how to build the models that represent the architecture, and supports all standard modelling technologies, such as the Unified Modelling Language (UML), Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN), and Integrated Computer-Aided Manufacturing (ICAM), Definition (IDEF).

The Foundation Architecture describes an Enterprise Continuum through which the developing architecture progresses from the general (foundation) to the organization-specific

What makes TOGAF popular is that it is a definitive and proven step-by-step method for developing and maintaining Enterprise Architecture. It covers the four principal architecture domains of business, information systems (application and data), and technology infrastructure, and focuses strongly on the need for architecture to support business objectives and requirements.

It also takes into account establishing the goals and objectives of the Enterprise architecture effort itself, guiding users on determining how much of the enterprise is needed to model to realize significant gains, and the realities of getting buy-in from throughout the organization.