Phase E: Opportunities and Solutions
TOGAF states the objectives of Phase E are:
- To review the target business objectives and capabilities, consolidate the gaps from Phases B to D, and then organize groups of building blocks to address these capabilities
- To review and confirm the enterprise’s current parameters for and ability to absorb change
- To derive a series of Transition Architectures that deliver continuous business value (e.g., capability increments) through the exploitation of opportunities to realize the building blocks
- To generate and gain consensus on an outline Implementation and Migration Strategy
During the previous phases the capability, and information architecture were defined along with key business flows. In this phase these inputs will be used to help define and verify the following parts of the business architecture :-
- Functional architecture.
- Information architecture.
- Product/Offer architecture
- Customer architecture
- Process architecture
- Value chain
- Dynamic architecture
- Organisational Architecture
- Financial (related to product and customer)
In essence all of the above architectures for overlapping domains and an iterative approach of definition and verification will be required to create constancy. Often initial architectures are created and must be challenged when more detail is understood and other architectures overlaid. A balance between rigor and practicality is required to ensure the credibility of the artifacts with stakeholders. We would always recommend that a series of challenge workshops/exercises using business scenarios, deep dives and significant use cases take place.
Next: (when I get a chance) Definitions and approaches to creating the architecture.