Three ways to examine a decision
When a case changes hands, someone must accept responsibility. The team needs to describe the agreement, decide how to introduce it and specify enough detail for people or software to act on it.
A Simple Architectural Framework (ASAF) separates those questions:
| Dimension | Question | Explore |
|---|---|---|
| Aspects | Which concerns does the decision affect? | Purpose, Process, Information, Systems and the other aspects |
| Process areas | What work develops, changes, operates and governs it? | Visioning, Transforming, Operating and Governing |
| Levels of abstraction | What kind of description does the decision need? | Conceptual, Logical and Physical |
Use them together at the scope you need: an enterprise, business area, service, solution or component. A logical description can concern an organisation or its information just as much as software.
Starting with your work
Starting points gathers the practical guides and explains how they connect. It is available from the main menu on every page.
Business architecture connects purpose, people, information and change across several aspects. You can also go straight to Information, Systems or Security. Each aspect links guidance, comparisons, decision cycles, the shared example and editable records.
The worked example shows the connections. The templates provide records you can adapt to your own decisions.
Assessing the result
Judge the architecture by how well people can develop, operate, support and change the service. Judge the method by the time and effort needed to reach useful, accepted decisions. The assessment guide brings these questions together with quality and useful longevity.
Methodology configuration
Map ASAF’s terminology and activities to your methodology. Your method may use actors, services, stages or iterations. Combine or split the guidance where that reflects the work, checking who is responsible and what each term means. Start with Methodology configuration.