TM Forum's frameworks and Enterprise Architecture

What is EA? I promise a down to earth definition.

We have all these plans for the CRM, data warehouse, portal, printing and floor maps, networks, manufacturing bands, buildings, locations... EA is supposed to integrate all plans or blueprints in a whole, the parts of which can be related. Not that we don’t have these designs, we do. But they are devised with different components, diagramming techniques, symbols, tools... A plan is typically useful only to a small community which has its own vocabulary, conventions and tools, or may be, more importantly, own objectives to achieve that relate little to the whole.  EA is supposed to link all these architectures/blueprints in a whole where one can navigate from one item to another, in a logical manner. For instance, one may track the performance of a flow from one process to another, from the beginning to the end, inspecting, at the same time, the resources (e.g. applications) executing it.

EA becomes, as such, the integrated set of enterprise blueprints. Of course, to get to that unique integrated set of  views, one needs a frame that holds the views together exposing placeholders when the components have not been represented yet. Well, this is called an EA framework.

Today’s EA frameworks are taxonomies like Zachman, development process descriptions like TOGAF or design method and metamodel like DODAF. Most are  entrenched in IT though. That is why some fail to deliver to business expectations. One cannot draw a comprehensive Enterprise Architecture without a representation of the business operation. TM Forum's frameworks do describe a reference business architecture.

EA is used for many and various purposes, in fact, as many as stakeholders. Enterprise Architecture, EA, was compared to city planning. One needs to plan roads, public and residential buildings, parks, shopping malls, entertainment venues, water and gas pipes, electricity cables, telephone wires etc. But, as you know, city stakeholders like gas, cable, water, sewage, phone... companies, they are all digging incessantly each others' pipes and our pavements, having, apparently, little regard for a common plan or blueprint. I think there is a human tendency to choose the organic growth versus the planned and the tactical against the strategic. Nonetheless, cities are the result of an organic evolution over centuries of building for immediate needs, trends and styles. American cities are planned to a degree few other cities are because the rectangular grid was planned early in a city lifecycle. But many cities are too old already for reconstruction. As such, urban architecture, like EA, is a lot about managing the change from as-is to to-be, the two end states of the EA, in iterations.

As a practice, EA needs to roadmap all change in the enterprise, facilitate the alignment of structure and projects to enterprise ends and strategic directions. Ultimately, the TM Forum’s Integrated Business Architecture would support the enterprise transformation effort, not only for technical reasons, but to enable the alignment of the enterprise operation to business needs, changes, goals and strategy.

The TM Forum's integrated frameworks may be positioned, in fact, as an EA framework, i.e. a template to build an EA. We have a Business Process Framework (eTOM) describing a reference process architecture, an Information Framework (SID), the template for your Information Architecture, and a generic Application Architecture, all in all, the key layers of an EA. We evolve towards SOE, too.

But there is also some work to do before we get there. We have to better integrate the parts and add  technology and organization views, business and operating models, Value Chains, an EA like transformation method and possibly, some more. But, in addition to the core frameworks, we have Revenue Management, Benchmarking, SLA models...  no other EA framework can offer today.

But this is my view. What is yours?