TOGAF makes a generalist out of a Specialist. Project Leader (PL) and the team invests a long time and energy meeting the schedules, only to find out that system does not meet functional requirements during Unit Testing phase. This leads to new bug identifications, new service request and SDLC phase. This no doubt the proven way of getting the functions implemented but it lacks the "First time right" principle. Addiitionally the state of affairs are like this because PL normally perceive themselves as technocrats who can solve all problems with programs. Thus challenge is more to prove the Technical Supremacy than understanding business needs.
There is a need to create considerable amount of communication between Technical team and business team. Business Associate (BA) can play a critical role in creating the right atmosphere.Now assuming that organization is able to bring the business and technical team together then PL needs to be equipped with the knowledge of asking the right question to business folks and see the value of their ask in an integrated perspective. PLs in different silos can talk among themselves to comprehend customer needs. But they will not be able to communicate effectively due to lack of Enterprise Architecture understanding. This integrated perspective and its motivation is realized in TOGAF class room course. The PL understand the four architecture domains of Business, Data, Application and Technology. We demonstrate Enterprise Architecture tool to drive home importance of modelling while teaching the technique.
Participants in our course visually see the Layered view from Location to Infrastructure to Application to Business service. Inter relations among Entities are established and Impact Analysis is explained in an easy to understand manner. The decision maker can easily identify the business services impacted in case of a disaster at a location and do preemptive planning. Since PL will understand technical details they also start seeing value in Business and IT realignment.
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