You are working as an Enterprise Architect within an Enterprise Architecture (EA) team at a multinational energy company. The company is committed to becoming a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050. To achieve this, the company is focusing on shifting to renewable energy production and adopting eco-friendly practices.
The EA team, which reports to the Chief Technical Officer (CTO), has been tasked with overseeing the transformation to make the company more effective through acquisitions. The company plans to fully integrate these acquisitions, including merging operations and systems.
To address the integration challenges, the EA team leader wants to know how to manage risks and ensure that the company succeeds with the proposed changes. Based on the TOGAF Standard, which of the following is the best answer?
A. The EA team should create a Business Scenario to fully describe the business problem that is being addressed by the transformation. Once requirements are identified, they should be evaluated in terms of risks. Any residual risks should be escalated to the Architecture Board.
B. The EA team should develop Business Architecture views that demonstrate how stakeholder concerns are addressed and assess each factor for readiness, urgency, and degree of difficulty.
C. The EA team should evaluate the company’s readiness for change by identifying factors that will impact the transformation. These factors will be used to determine initial risks associated with the initiative.
D. The EA team should document the risks associated with the transformation in an Implementation Factor Catalog to inform decisions during implementation and deployment.
Explanation:
In TOGAF, creating a Business Scenario is a foundational step in defining and understanding the business problem, especially for complex transformations involving multiple stakeholders andsystems, such as in this scenario. This method aligns with Phase A (Architecture Vision) of the TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM). Here’s why this approach is the most effective:
Understanding Business Requirements: A Business Scenario provides a structured way to capture and analyze the business requirements, stakeholder concerns, and the contextual elements related to the problem. In this scenario, the company faces challenges in integrating newly acquired companies with existing operations, which includes complex stakeholder concerns across different functional areas. Developing a Business Scenario allows the EA team to break down these complexities into identifiable and manageable parts.
Risk Evaluation and Management: By using the Business Scenario approach, the EA team can not only define the requirements but also assess associated risks systematically. TOGAF emphasizes the importance of risk management through identifying potential risks, evaluating their impact, and defining strategies for handling these risks. The process includes assessing how risks can be avoided, transferred, or reduced―a necessary step in large-scale transformations to ensure that risks are proactively managed.
Residual Risks and Governance: Any risks that cannot be fully resolved should be identified as residual risks and escalated to the Architecture Board, which is aligned with TOGAF’s governance approach. The Architecture Board’s role in TOGAF is to provide oversight and make critical decisions on risks that exceed the control of the EA team. This ensures that unresolved risks are managed at the appropriate level of the organization.
Alignment with TOGAF ADM Phases: The Business Scenario approach directly aligns with the Preliminary and Architecture Vision phases of the TOGAF ADM, which focuses on establishing a baseline understanding of the business context and the strategic transformation required. The detailed understanding of requirements, stakeholder concerns, and risks identified here will guide the subsequent phases of the ADM, including Business Architecture and Information Systems Architecture.
TOGAF Reference (Section 2.6, ADM Techniques): TOGAF provides guidelines on the creation of Business Scenarios as part of ADM Techniques, highlighting the importance of defining a business problem comprehensively to ensure successful transformation. This method includes identification of stakeholders, business requirements, and associated risks, which aligns well with the company's need for strategic and systematic integration of new business units.
By utilizing a Business Scenario, the EA team ensures that all aspects of the transformation are well understood, risks are identified early, and residual risks are managed effectively, aligning with the company's strategic objectives and the TOGAF framework’s guidance on risk management and stakeholder alignment.
