On Monday 16th April 2018, at their Member Conference in London, the Open Group formally announced the launch of the latest version of the TOGAF standard. There has not been a new release of the standard since 2011 so it is great to see some of the feedback from member organizations and the wider practitioner community being incorporated to this latest release. With the latest version addressing a number of common concerns and critiques of the standard, we are confident that the adoption of TOGAF will continue to grow and head towards the 100,000 mark in the next year or two.
Key Changes and Updates
Some of the key changes and improvements in the 9.2 release are outlined below:
- The structure of the TOGAF Body of Knowledge is now much more consumable for practitioners. The slimming down of the main body of the standard and the introduction of a number of practical ‘series guides’ in the TOGAF Library has made it much more useful for practitioners looking to apply TOGAF in an organizational context.
- Within the ADM, the Business Architecture phase has seen significant changes and enhancements with the addition of new artefacts and deliverables to support a more business-driven approach to Enterprise Architecture.
- The Architecture Vision phase is also much more business-oriented in the new release. The addition of business modelling techniques such as value streams, organization maps and business capabilities lend itself to a greater focus on understanding business drivers before getting into the underlying technology and applications that support it.
- The chapters on SOA, Security, Business Scenarios, and Reference Models have been removed from the Specification and moved to the TOGAF Library in documents such as the Series Guides.
- New key definitions have been added along with adjustments to existing definitions that were causing confusion and debate in the existing standard.
In summary, the new 9.2 standard has become more user-friendly for the practitioner through a comprehensive re-structuring of the content within the TOGAF library, and for the Business, it is now much better aligned to serving the current and future needs of the organization with more upfront focus on understanding exactly what those needs of the business are.
WHAT IF I AM ALREADY TOGAF 9.1 CERTIFIED?
For those practitioners who have already become certified in TOGAF 9 or TOGAF 9.1, you will still be certified under the existing TOGAF 9 certification program. If you wish to show up-to-date knowledge of the new 9.2 standard, there will be a new Open Badge available under the TOGAF Essentials 2018 program. To obtain this badge, certified individuals in TOGAF 9 must attend a 3-hour training session and then sit an assessment to demonstrate they have up to date knowledge on the new standard. EA Principals is the first training organization in the USA to be accredited for the Essentials Training Program and we have a number of dates available, both in classroom and live online formats, to enable our customers to obtain the TOGAF Essentials 2018 badge.
If you would like more info on getting the TOGAF Essentials 2018 credential and our upcoming schedule, click here and check out the course information.
WANT TO GET TRAINED IN TOGAF 9.2?
All our course materials have already been updated to the TOGAF 9.2 standard, as well as all of our supporting books and reference materials (where appropriate). We will be rolling out the new TOGAF 9.2 standard in our courses with immediate effect and all our Instructors have already gone through the internal training provided by the Open Group to bring them up to the 9.2 certification standard.
Check out our TOGAF 9.2 training course and schedule here.
If you have any questions at all about the new version of the standard or would like to discuss training options for you and your team, please do reach out to us here or give us a call on +1 703 333 6098.