OGBA-101 Sample Questions Answers

The ADM Phases that match the purpose descriptions provided are: Phase C for the development of Information Systems Architectures to support the agreed Architecture Vision, Phase F for addressing the move from the Baseline to the Target Architectures by finalizing a detailed Implementation and Migration Plan, Phase G for providing architectural oversight of the implementation, and Phase D for describing the development of the Technology Architecture to support the agreed Architecture Vision.

In TOGAF ADM, Phase B is the Business Architecture phase where the architect should locate existing architecture descriptions to create an information map. This phase involves developing a detailed understanding of the business environment, including business processes, roles, and information flows. Existing architecture descriptions provide a baseline for identifying how information is currently managed and how it can be optimized to support business objectives.

A business capability map is a comprehensive representation that showcases an organization's abilities in a structured manner. It identifies and illustrates the various business capabilities that allow the enterprise to function and deliver value. These capabilities are often defined independently of the organizational structure, processes, or technology, focusing instead on what the business does and can do. This map encompasses the end-to-end value delivery and how different capabilities interrelate and support one another, thus providing a holistic view of the business's functional abilities.

The provided representation of a business model appears to be a variant of the Business Model Canvas, which is a strategic management template for developing new or documenting existing business models. It is a visual chart with elements describing a firm's value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances. The model assists firms in aligning their activities by illustrating potential trade-offs. Since none of the options precisely match the Business Model Canvas and the Four Box Framework is conceptually closest to the Business Model Canvas, option B is the best available answer, albeit not a perfect match.

TOGAF defines an “Enterprise” as any collection of organizations or alliances working toward shared goals, such as in consortiums or partnerships. This scope allows the architecture to address cross-organization processes and infrastructures for collaborative endeavors.

 The process used to decompose a set of business capabilities to communicate more detail is leveling6. Leveling is a technique that can be used to break down a business capability into sub-capabilities at lower levels of granularity6. Leveling can help to provide more clarity and specificity about what a business capability entails and how it supports the business goals and objectives6. Leveling can also help to identify dependencies, gaps, overlaps, or redundancies among business capabilities6.

The table describes the steps involved in Phase B (Business Architecture), Phase C (Information Systems Architectures), and Phase D (Technology Architecture) of the TOGAF ADM5. These phases are responsible for developing the target architectures for each domain and identifying the gaps between the baseline and target architectures. The table shows the outputs and outcomes of each phase, as well as the essential knowledge required for each phase.

The table describes the iterative cycle of defining requirements, identifying gaps, and creating solutions that occurs throughout the architecture development phases of the TOGAF ADM. This cycle is most prominent in:

Phase B (Business Architecture):

Develop the Business Architecture, identifying gaps between the baseline and desired business capabilities, processes, and information flows.

Define work packages to address these gaps and realize the target business architecture.

Phase C (Information Systems Architectures):

Develop the Data and Application Architectures to support the Business Architecture.

Identify gaps between the baseline and target information systems architectures.

Define work packages to address these gaps and realize the target data and application architectures.

Phase D (Technology Architecture):

Develop the Technology Architecture to support the Data and Application Architectures.

Identify gaps between the baseline and target technology architectures.

Define work packages to address these gaps and realize the target technology architecture.

Risk Management is the discipline that addresses the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated application of resources to minimize, control, and monitor the impact of unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities. It is about striking a balance between the positive outcomes of opportunities and the negative outcomes of risks, ensuring that the enterprise can achieve its objectives while keeping potential threats under control.

In the context of TOGAF and Business Architecture, the diagram depicts the relationship between a Value Stream, Value Stage, and Value.

Value Stream: Represents the end-to-end set of activities that create and deliver value to a stakeholder.

Value Stage: A distinct step or phase within the Value Stream.

Value: The benefit delivered to the stakeholder.

The relationship "X" indicates that a Value Stream is composed of multiple Value Stages.

Think of it like a journey (Value Stream) with multiple stops along the way (Value Stages). Each stage contributes to the overall value delivered at the end of the journey.

 The technique shown in the example is called relationship mapping. It is a technique that can be used to show how a business architecture addresses stakeholder concerns across different parts of an organization2. It can highlight gaps or overlaps in the coverage of stakeholder concerns by a business architecture. In this case, the technique is used to relate business capabilities to organization units so as to highlight duplication and redundancy.

This modeling technique is referred to as Relationship Mapping. It's used to relate business capabilities to organizational units to highlight areas of duplication and redundancy, as well as to indicate where capabilities are being performed well (green), where there are potential issues (yellow), and where there are significant problems or gaps (red). This visualization helps in understanding the alignment between organizational units and capabilities, and where improvements or changes may be needed.

5.2.1 Capability/Organization Mapping https://pubs.opengroup.org/togaf-standard/business-architecture/business-capabilities.html#_Toc95135898

Mapping is the process that turns a set of business capabilities into a structure that communicates the right amount of detail to different stakeholder groups. Here’s a detailed explanation:

Definition of Mapping:

Mapping: In the context of business architecture, mapping refers to the process of visually representing the relationships between business capabilities and other elements such as processes, value streams, and organizational units. This helps in communicating the structure and interactions within the business.

Purpose:

Communication: Mapping provides a clear and structured way to communicate the details of business capabilities to different stakeholder groups. It ensures that each group receives the appropriate level of detail needed for their role and decision-making.

Alignment: Helps in aligning business capabilities with strategic goals, processes, and organizational structure, ensuring that the architecture supports the overall business strategy.

TOGAF References:

Phase B: Business Architecture: During this phase, mapping is used to represent business capabilities and their relationships with other business elements. This helps in creating a coherent and comprehensive business architecture.

Capability Mapping: TOGAF emphasizes the use of capability mapping to understand and analyze how different capabilities support business processes and value streams.

Benefits:

Clarity and Understanding: Mapping provides a visual representation that enhances clarity and understanding of the business architecture. It helps stakeholders see the big picture and understand how different parts of the business fit together.

Stakeholder Engagement: By providing the right amount of detail to different stakeholders, mapping ensures effective engagement and collaboration across the organization.

In summary, mapping is the process that turns a set of business capabilities into a structure that communicates the right amount of detail to different stakeholder groups, facilitating clarity, understanding, and alignment.

In the absence of existing Architecture Descriptions, the development of a Business Architecture would begin with the gathering of relevant information about the business. This information can come from strategic documents, business plans, process documents, and stakeholder interviews, among other sources. Once gathered, this information would be used to create Business Architecture models that articulate the business vision, strategy, governance, organization, and key business processes. These models provide a blueprint that captures the essence of the business and guides subsequent architecture work.

The diagram presented is best described as a Business Capability Map. Here's a detailed explanation:

Business Capability Map:

Definition: A Business Capability Map represents the various capabilities an organization requires to deliver its products and services and achieve its strategic objectives. It typically categorizes capabilities into different levels or tiers, such as strategic, core, and supporting capabilities.

Diagram Analysis:

Layers and Groupings: The diagram shows capabilities grouped into three categories: Strategic, Core, and Supporting. Each group lists specific business capabilities necessary for the organization’s functioning.

Color Coding: The use of different colors (green, red, yellow, purple) may indicate various aspects such as priority, status, or different business units. However, the primary purpose is to visually represent and categorize capabilities.

TOGAF References:

Phase B: Business Architecture: In this phase, creating a Business Capability Map is a crucial activity. It helps in understanding the business functions and aligning them with strategic goals.

Capability-Based Planning: TOGAF promotes capability-based planning, which involves identifying, mapping, and analyzing business capabilities to ensure they support the overall strategy and objectives.

Purpose and Benefits:

Strategic Alignment: The Business Capability Map helps in aligning business capabilities with the strategic objectives of the organization. It provides a clear view of what the organization needs to do to achieve its goals.

Gap Analysis: It is useful for conducting gap analysis by comparing current capabilities with the desired state, helping to identify areas for improvement.

Resource Allocation: By understanding the different capabilities, organizations can allocate resources more effectively to areas that need development or enhancement.

In summary, the diagram is best described as a Business Capability Map because it visually represents and categorizes the various capabilities needed by the organization into strategic, core, and supporting layers, aligning them with the business strategy and objectives.

In the provided diagram, item A refers to the Architecture Repository, which is a part of the TOGAF framework where all the architecture assets are stored. This includes the architectural models, patterns, architecture descriptions, and other artifacts relevant to the architecture. Item B is labeled as the Governing Board, which is likely referring to the Architecture Board or a similar governance structure responsible for oversight and decision-making regarding the enterprise architecture. Item C refers to Enterprise Capability, which encompasses the processes, tools, skills, and other capabilities that enable the architecture function within the enterprise.

The step during development of a business scenario that ensures that each iteration is managed as a mini-project is the Planning Step3. The Planning Step is a preparatory step that defines how to approach each iteration of developing a business scenario3. The Planning Step involves setting up a project team with clear roles and responsibilities, defining a project plan with milestones and deliverables, identifying stakeholders and their concerns, establishing communication channels and feedback mechanisms, and securing resources and budget3. The Planning Step can help to ensure that each iteration is managed as a mini-project with clear objectives, scope, schedule, quality criteria, risks, and issues.

Risk is defined as the effect of uncertainty on objectives. It can be positive or negative depending on whether it enhances or hinders the achievement of objectives. Threat is a potential cause of risk that could have a negative impact on objectives. Continuity is the ability to maintain or resume normal operations after a disruption or disaster. Vulnerability is a weakness or exposure that could be exploited by a threat to cause harm or damage.

In TOGAF, the dimensions for scoping an architecture are Breadth (coverage across the organization), Depth (level of detail), Time Period (horizon of the architecture), and Architecture Domains (the four architecture domains of Business, Data, Application, and Technology). These dimensions ensure comprehensive scoping and contextual alignment.

One of the benefits of organization mapping is that it improves strategic planning2. Organization mapping is a technique that can be used to document and visualize the organizational structure and relationships of an enterprise or a part of it2. Organization mapping can help to align the organizational design with the business strategy, goals, and objectives2. Organization mapping can also help to identify the roles, responsibilities, authorities, accountabilities, and dependencies of different organizational entities2. By providing a clear and consistent view of the organizational landscape, organization mapping can enable better informed and more effective decisions for strategic planning.

In TOGAF’s Architecture Development Method (ADM), the information map is linked to other business blueprints during Phase B: Business Architecture. Phase B is focused on developing the Business Architecture, which involves creating and aligning various business architecture artifacts, such as capability maps, value streams, organizational maps, and information maps.

The information map provides an outline of the critical information needed to support the business capabilities and processes. By linking the information map with other business blueprints (like the process and capability maps), architects can ensure alignment and coherence across business architecture components. This helps in creating a clear, unified view of how information flows and supports business operations and value creation.

Option B (Phase E) is incorrect because Phase E (Opportunities and Solutions) is primarily focused on identifying potential solutions and prioritizing initiatives for implementation.

Option C (Phase A) is incorrect as Phase A (Architecture Vision) is focused on defining the scope and vision of the overall architecture effort and gaining stakeholder agreement.

Option D (Preliminary Phase) is incorrect as it focuses on establishing the architecture framework and principles rather than creating detailed business blueprints.

Therefore, Phase B: Business Architecture is the correct answer, as it is the stage where the information map is integrated with other business architecture artifacts to create a cohesive business architecture.

The diagram of an architecture development cycle shows three phases of the TOGAF ADM. The correct phase names corresponding to the labels 1, 2 and 3 are Requirements Management, Implementation Governance, and Preliminary respectively3. These phases are described as follows:

Requirements Management (label 1): This phase provides a process for managing architecture requirements throughout the ADM cycle3. It ensures that requirements are captured, stored, prioritized, and addressed by relevant ADM phases3. It also ensures that requirements are validated and updated as necessary3.

Implementation Governance (label 2): This phase provides a process for ensuring that the implementation projects conform to the defined architecture3. It involves establishing an implementation governance model, defining architecture contracts and compliance reviews, and monitoring and supporting the implementation projects3.

Preliminary (label 3): This phase provides a process for preparing and planning the architecture project3. It involves defining the scope and vision of the project, customizing the ADM process and content framework, defining principles and governance structures, and evaluating the enterprise architecture maturity and readiness3.

In business capability mapping, once all business capabilities have been documented, the next step is to organize these capabilities logically. This organization helps in understanding how different capabilities interact and align with the business strategy. Here’s a detailed explanation based on TOGAF principles:

Business Capability Mapping:

Business capability mapping involves identifying and documenting the capabilities required to execute the business strategy. Capabilities are the building blocks of the business, representing what the business does.

Logical Organization:

Grouping and Categorization: Capabilities should be grouped and categorized logically to reflect their relationships and dependencies. This can be done by aligning capabilities with business functions, processes, or strategic objectives.

Hierarchical Structure: Organizing capabilities into a hierarchical structure helps in visualizing how high-level capabilities decompose into more specific, detailed capabilities. This hierarchical view aids in understanding the complexity and scope of capabilities.

Alignment with Strategy: Logical organization ensures that capabilities are aligned with the business strategy and objectives. It helps in identifying which capabilities are critical for achieving strategic goals and which ones need development or improvement.

TOGAF ADM References:

Phase B: Business Architecture: This phase involves developing the business architecture, including capability mapping. Organizing capabilities logically is a key step in this process, as it helps in creating a coherent and comprehensive business architecture.

Capability Models: TOGAF recommends using capability models to represent the organization’s capabilities. These models should be logically organized to facilitate analysis and planning.

Practical Steps:

Analyze Relationships: Examine the relationships between capabilities to identify dependencies and interactions. This analysis helps in grouping related capabilities together.

Create a Capability Map: Develop a visual representation of the capabilities, organized logically. This map serves as a reference for understanding the business architecture and planning initiatives.

In summary, after documenting all business capabilities, organizing them in a logical manner is essential for creating a coherent and effective business architecture. This logical organization facilitates better analysis, planning, and alignment with business strategy.

The examples given (a whole corporation, a division of a corporation, a government agency, a single government department, partnerships, and alliances) are considered "Enterprises" according to the TOGAF Standard. Here’s a detailed explanation:

Definition of an Enterprise:

Enterprise: According to TOGAF, an enterprise is any collection of organizations that share a common set of goals. It can be a whole corporation, a division of a corporation, a government agency, or a consortium of businesses.

Examples of Enterprises:

Corporation or Division: An enterprise can be a whole corporation or just a division within a larger organization.

Government Entities: It includes government agencies or individual departments within the government.

Partnerships and Alliances: Enterprises can also be partnerships and alliances of businesses, such as consortia or supply chains.

TOGAF References:

Scope of Enterprise Architecture: TOGAF defines enterprise architecture as encompassing the entire scope of the enterprise, including all its sub-units and external partnerships.

Enterprise Continuum: TOGAF’s Enterprise Continuum provides a framework for understanding and organizing the artifacts that make up the enterprise architecture.

In summary, the examples provided are considered "Enterprises" according to the TOGAF Standard, as they represent collections of organizations with shared goals.

The development of Business Architecture Descriptions is always iterative because it involves constant refinement and validation of the architecture models and views based on stakeholder feedback and changing requirements. Therefore, any Architecture Description that was created in Phase A may need to be updated in Phase B as new information or insights emerge. Phase B does not require that all Architecture Descriptions be updated, only those that are relevant and necessary for the Business Architecture. Phase B is an ADM Architecture Development phase, but that does not explain why Architecture Descriptions need to be updated. A new value stream may or may not require updating existing Architecture Descriptions depending on its scope and impact.

In TOGAF's ADM, the development of architecture is an iterative process. During Phase A, initial business capability maps and value streams are created to establish the Architecture Vision. However, as stakeholders provide more detailed inputs and requirements are refined, it is necessary to update the Architecture Descriptions. This is an iterative process that continues into Phase B, Business Architecture, where these descriptions are further developed and refined.

A business model is a description of the rationale for how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value4. Value is defined as the worth or importance of something to someone6. A business model explains what value proposition the organization offers to its customers, what revenue streams it generates from delivering the value proposition, what cost structure it incurs to create and deliver the value proposition, what key resources and activities are needed to create and deliver the value proposition, and what key partnerships are leveraged to support the value creation and delivery process4.