Category Archives: The Open Group

[Updated October 5, 2016]

Inspired by Gerben Wierda’s thoughtful discussion about how the full framework is depicted in the new ArchiMate* 3.0 specification (An AchiMate 3 Map (Layers? What Layers! — 1)), I’m going to suggest there’s another level of improvement that can be made to the specification’s “peanut butter and jelly sandwich” diagram. [Please excuse the visual metaphor but that’s what it looks like – with PB&J leaking out on all sides.]

Figure 1. ArchiMate 3 Layers and Aspects

In his posting, Gerben suggests a succession of improvements (depicted below).

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Figure 2. Gerben Wierda’s Suggested Improvements

But they still left my question unanswered: Why were Strategy, Motivation, Implementation & Migration left as disconnected layers on opposite sides of the enterprise architecture map? [I don’t accept Motivation being classed as an Aspect but that’s a topic for another article.]

What happened to the architectural principles of simplicity and elegance?

Aren’t the following series of enterprise architecture maps more informative and more understandable?  …more pragmatically useful?  I refer to the version below as the Progressive Enterprise Architecture Map.

Figure 3. Progressive Enterprise Architecture Model: Progressive Enterprise Architecture Map

Check them out for yourself and please add your feedback in the Comments section below. Click on any diagram to see a larger version.

Best regards,
Michael Herman (Toronto)

p.s. If the arrows make the enterprise architecture map too prescriptive from a pure ArchiMate specification perspective, what do you think of this version?

p.p.s. In October 2016, in the article Crossing the Enterprise Architecture Chasm, I extended PEAMs to include:

• Continuous Transformations
• Strategy Chasm
• Enterprise Architecture Chasm

Here’s an example (click to enlarge):

*ArchiMate is a registered trademark of The Open Group.