The TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM) forms the core of TOGAF. It is a reliable, proven method for developing an IT architecture that meets the business needs of an organization, utilizing the other elements of TOGAF described in this document, and other architectural assets available to the organization.
Key Concepts of TOGAF ADM
- The TOGAF ADM describes the process of moving from the TOGAF Foundation Architecture to an organization-specific architecture (or set of architectures), leveraging the elements of the TOGAF Foundation Architecture and other relevant architectural components and building blocks along the way.
- The TOGAF Foundation Architecture is, of course, not the only resource available to the architect in using the ADM. There is a wide range of architectural models, components, and building blocks relating to different aspects of the architecture domain. This much wider context in which the TOGAF Foundation Architecture resides is referred to in TOGAF as the Enterprise Continuum (also explained in Part III).
- It is important to note that, in executing the ADM, the architect is not only developing the end result of an organization-specific architecture, s/he is also populating the organization’s own Enterprise Continuum, with all the architectural assets identified and leveraged along the way — including, but not limited to, the resultant organization-specific architecture.
- Although the primary focus of the ADM is on the development of the organization-specific architecture, in this wider context the ADM can also be viewed as the process of populating the organization’s Enterprise Continuum with relevant reusable building blocks.
- Architecture development is an iterative, on-going process, and in executing the ADM repeatedly over time, the architect gradually populates more and more of the organization’s Enterprise Continuum.
- In fact, the first execution of the ADM will often be the hardest, since the architectural assets available for re-use will be relatively few. (Even in the first execution, however, there will be some architecture assets available, from external sources such as The Open Group and TOGAF.)
- Subsequent executions will be easier, however, as more and more architecture assets become identified, used to populate the organization’s Enterprise Continuum, and thus available for re-use.
Visual Paradigm seamlessly integrates the latest ArchiMate modeling notation for creating artifacts and deliverables for the entire TOGAF ADM Process
