11.1 Architecture Governance: Concept & Benefits
Key Takeaways
- TOGAF defines Architecture Governance as the practice of monitoring and directing architecture-related work to deliver desired outcomes and adhere to principles, standards, and roadmaps.
- TOGAF describes governance as less about overt control and strict adherence to rules and more about guidance and effective, equitable use of resources.
- The six characteristics of governance are Discipline, Transparency, Independence, Accountability, Responsibility, and Fairness.
- The Architecture Governance Framework separates process, content, and context so new governance material can be introduced without unduly impacting the processes.
- Benefits of Architecture Governance include increased transparency of accountability, proactive risk and opportunity management, and protection of assets through re-use.
11.1 Architecture Governance: Concept & Benefits
"Introduction to Architecture Governance" is worth 3 of 40 questions. This section covers two learning outcomes: briefly explain the concept of Architecture Governance and explain why Architecture Governance is beneficial.
Definitions
| Term | TOGAF Standard, 10th Edition definition |
|---|---|
| Governance | The discipline of monitoring and guiding the management of a business (or IS/IT landscape) to deliver the business outcomes required |
| Architecture Governance | The practice of monitoring and directing architecture-related work. The goal is to deliver desired outcomes and adhere to relevant principles, standards, and roadmaps |
| Business Governance | Concerned with ensuring that the business processes and policies (and their operation) deliver the business outcomes and adhere to relevant business regulation |
The Nature of Governance
TOGAF explains that governance is about ensuring that business is conducted properly. It is less about overt control and strict adherence to rules, and more about guidance and effective and equitable usage of resources to ensure the sustainability of an organization's strategic objectives.
Characteristics of Governance
TOGAF draws on corporate governance literature to describe six characteristics:
| Characteristic | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Discipline | All involved parties commit to adhere to procedures, processes, and authority structures established by the organization |
| Transparency | All actions implemented and their decision support are available for inspection by authorized organization and provider parties |
| Independence | All processes, decision-making, and mechanisms minimize or avoid potential conflicts of interest |
| Accountability | Identifiable groups within the organization — for example, governance boards that take actions or make decisions — are authorized and accountable for their actions |
| Responsibility | Each contracted party is required to act responsibly to the organization and its stakeholders |
| Fairness | All decisions taken, processes used, and their implementation are not allowed to create unfair advantage to any one particular party |
What Architecture Governance Includes
Architecture governance typically includes:
- Implementing a system of controls over the creation and monitoring of all architectural components and activities, to ensure effective introduction, implementation, and evolution of architectures
- Implementing a system to ensure compliance with internal and external standards and regulatory obligations
- Establishing processes that support effective management of these activities within agreed parameters
- Developing practices that ensure accountability to a clearly identified stakeholder community, inside and outside the organization
A Hierarchy of Governance
Architecture governance operates within a hierarchy of governance structures, particularly in larger enterprises: corporate governance, technology governance, IT governance, and architecture governance. Each can exist at multiple geographic levels (global, regional, local), and architecture governance must be coordinated with the others rather than duplicating them.
The Architecture Governance Framework
Conceptually, architecture governance is an approach, a series of processes, a cultural orientation, and a set of owned responsibilities that ensure the integrity and effectiveness of the organization's architectures. TOGAF's framework separates process, content, and context:
Governance Processes
| Process | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Policy Management and Take-On | Bring all architecture amendments, contracts, and supporting information under governance through a formal process to register, validate, ratify, manage, and publish new or updated content |
| Compliance | Carry out ongoing compliance assessments against service level agreements, operational level agreements, standards, and regulatory requirements |
| Dispensation | Provide an alternate route to interim conformance when a compliance assessment is rejected, granted for a given period and set of parameters |
| Monitoring and Reporting | Manage operational and service elements against agreed service levels, and report on governance outcomes |
| Business Control | The processes invoked to ensure compliance with the organization's business policies |
| Environment Management | The services that keep the repository-based environment underpinning the governance framework effective and efficient |
Governance Content and Context
| Element | What the framework shows |
|---|---|
| Content | The material under governance: requirements, SLAs and OLAs, authority structures, organizational standards, solutions, and architectures |
| Context | Drivers (business, technology, and regulatory) and the organizational form |
| Repository | The repository-based environment that holds governance content; the Architecture Repository's Governance Repository records items such as the decision log, compliance assessments, capability assessments, calendar, project portfolio, and performance measurement |
Splitting process, content, and context lets new governance material — legal, regulatory, standards-based, or legislative — be introduced without unduly impacting the processes, which keeps the framework flexible. The framework is integral to the Enterprise Continuum.
Governance is set up in the Preliminary Phase (the Architecture Governance Framework output) and operated throughout the ADM, especially in Phases G and H.
Why Architecture Governance Is Beneficial
The TOGAF Standard lists these benefits:
- Increased transparency of accountability, and informed delegation of authority
- Proactive risk and opportunity management
- Protection of the existing asset base through maximizing re-use of existing architectural components
- Proactive control, monitoring, and management mechanisms
- Process, concept, and component re-use across all organizational business units
- Value creation through monitoring, measuring, evaluation, and feedback
- Increased visibility supporting internal processes and external parties' requirements — in particular, increased visibility of decision-making at lower levels ensures oversight at an appropriate level of decisions that may have far-reaching strategic consequences
- Greater shareholder value — EA increasingly represents the core intellectual property of the enterprise, and studies have shown a correlation between increased shareholder value and well-governed enterprises
- Integration with existing processes and methodologies, complementing functionality by adding control capabilities
Scenario: Governance That Enables
An insurer's business units each bought their own policy administration systems. After establishing architecture governance, standards and principles are taken on through a formal process, project designs are checked for compliance at agreed checkpoints, and exceptions are handled through time-limited dispensations recorded in the governance repository. Decisions that once happened invisibly in individual projects now reach the right level of oversight, re-use of shared components rises, and auditors can trace why each exception was granted — the transparency, re-use, and visibility benefits in practice.
Common Exam Pitfalls
- Treating governance as pure control. TOGAF says governance is less about overt control and more about guidance and effective, equitable use of resources.
- Mixing up the characteristics. Independence is about avoiding conflicts of interest; Transparency is about actions being open to inspection; Fairness is about no unfair advantage.
- Forgetting the hierarchy. Architecture governance sits alongside corporate, technology, and IT governance.
- Overlooking re-use as a benefit. Protection of the existing asset base through re-use is an explicit benefit.
How does the TOGAF Standard, 10th Edition define Architecture Governance?
Which characteristic of governance means that all processes, decision-making, and mechanisms minimize or avoid potential conflicts of interest?
Which of the following is a benefit of Architecture Governance listed in the TOGAF Standard?
How does TOGAF characterize the nature of governance?